Notifications to the European Commission on the Control Database (CDB)

Placement of the CDB and access thereto

Whilst the electronic means used by a future remote gambling licence holder in the organization of remote games of chance must be located in an EU or EEA Member State (barring exemptions given by the NGA to establish it in a third country), the CDB must be placed in the Netherlands (Article 4.42 Remote Gambling Decree, Besluit kansspelen op afstand, “RGD”).

Future remote gambling licensees must grant electronic access at all times to the CDB and the data retained therein to the civil servants and/or individuals responsible for monitoring compliance with (a) the Betting and Gambling Act (Wet op de kansspelen, BGA”), (b) the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act (Wet ter voorkoming van witwassen en financieren van terrorisme) and (c) Dutch tax law (Article 5.3(3) RGD).

In this regard, it is worth noting that the control database may only be placed in areas to which the civil servants and/or individuals responsible for compliance with the BGA (i.e. supervisors of the NGA) have access without the consent of third parties or any other impediments (Article 4.21 draft Remote Gambling Regulation, Concept-regeling kansspelen op afstand, “RGR”). This means that future remote gambling licensees are prohibited from placing the control database in, for example, a residence (woning), as entry to this residence requires the permission of its occupant pursuant to Article 5:15 of the General Administrative Law Act (Algemene wet bestuursrecht).

Data that must be included in the CDB and minimum retention period

Following Article 5.3(2) of the RGD, the following data must be included in the CDB:

• a unique identifier for each player that cannot be traced directly to the player’s identity;
• the date, time and nature of each change to the player’s profile and each occasion on which a profile limit is exceeded;
• the reason for and date, time and nature of any intervention measures performed to prevent excessive participation and gambling addiction in as far as is possible;
• the date, time, amount and nature of any credit to and any debit from any account as well as the nature where applicable of the payment instrument used and, where applicable, a unique identifier that cannot be traced directly to the player’s identity of the associated current account that is debited or credited; and
• the total stake and winnings per type of game and, insofar as a game of chance is involved whereby the licence holder receives fees not in the form of a stake in return for providing the opportunity to take part in that game of chance, the total amount of those fees.

Please note that the NGA can – where necessary – specify the data described above in more detail in its implementation policy. In terms of the periods for the storage and retention of data, future remote gambling licensees are required to retain the data entered in the CDB for at least twelve months (Article 4.14(5) RGR). After this period, the licence holder may decide to no longer keep these data in the control database. However, this does not mean that the licence holder is no longer required to retain such data in his own administrative records system.

Three documents notified to the European Commission

The Netherlands notified three draft documents to the European Commission regarding the CDB on 17 June 2020.

The first two documents stem from the NGA and concern:

• Data mode for the remote gambling data safe (the CDB), which contains requirements about the data to be deposited into the CDB, including requirements on formatting and processing.
• Specifications for the remote gambling data safe (the CDB), which contains specifications for its infrastructure and use.

The third document stems from the Dutch Tax Authority (Belastingdienst) and contains further specifications regarding the CDB in terms of which data should be provided, and in what format, so that the Tax Authority can verify the tax returns.

Please note the all three documents are subject to a standstill period ending 18 September 2020 and, moreover, can be found in the database on the website of the European Commission.

Should you be looking to apply for a remote gambling licence application once the Remote Gambling Act (Wet kansspelen op afstand) enters into force and require any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.