KSA hands Instantcasino operator record €37.25m fine

• KSA fines Instantcasino and Skyhills operator EOD Code SRL €37.25 million.
• Uncapped penalty of €292.6 million cut back by the 10% turnover limit.
• Fine follows a breached 2025 penalty order and unanswered data requests.

The Dutch Gambling Authority (Kansspelautoriteit, KSA) has fined EOD Code SRL €37.25 million for offering unlicensed gambling to Dutch players through 12 websites, including Instantcasino and Skyhills.

The fining decision, dated 6 October 2026, was announced on 22 October and is the largest penalty the regulator has imposed for illegal gambling.

€280,000 a week

The case began with Instantcasino. On 19 November 2024, a KSA supervisor registered on the site from a Dutch IP address, deposited in Bitcoin and played slots. Repeat checks up to July 2025 found nothing had changed.

The KSA then issued a penalty order, dated 29 July 2025 and published on 26 August 2025. It gave EOD Code four weeks to stop serving Dutch players or forfeit €280,000 per week, up to €840,000.

Checks in September 2025 found Instantcasino still open to Dutch players. In December 2025, the KSA issued a collection decision to recover the €840,000 in forfeited periodic penalties. That recovery is separate from the new fine.

Vave.com operator Chestoption went through the same sequence and was fined €3.08 million in June after an earlier enforcement order.

Built for Dutch players

The investigation later widened to 11 more domains: Skyhills.com, slotmonster.com, betiro.com, betblast.com, fastslots.com, goldenpanda.com, sambaslots.com, winningz.com, incognitocasino.com, foxygold.com and luckypays.io.

KSA inspectors registered, deposited and gambled on all of them between November 2025 and June 2026. The sites offered casino games and sports betting.

On each of the 11 sites, “The Netherlands” appeared automatically in the country field at sign-up. Instantcasino filled in the Dutch +31 dialling code by default and answered customer questions in Dutch.

Payment pages were fully or partly in Dutch, with options including iDEAL, ING, Rabobank and ABN AMRO. Dutch influencers promoted Skyhills on Instagram, YouTube and Discord, and Dutch-language affiliate site Casinojager advertised Instantcasino.

A mirror domain, instantcasino17.com, was still accepting Dutch players when inspectors returned on 24 July 2026.

Aggravating circumstances

The KSA applied eight aggravating circumstances, adding 170 percentage points to the base fine. The first was age verification: according to the regulator, EOD Code had no visible checks in place before players completed registration.

Players could deposit in several cryptocurrencies, which the KSA said can facilitate tax evasion or money laundering. The sites also offered prohibited bets, autoplay features and missing or pre-filled play limits.

The terms and conditions carried as much weight as the missing age checks, at 50 points each. Inactive accounts lost €5 a month from the 13th month. Players who self-excluded permanently forfeited their balance, and withdrawals were capped at €20,000 a month.

EOD Code’s websites state that the company is registered and regulated in Costa Rica, with disputes reserved for courts in Curaçao. The company did not respond when the KSA invited its views on the case.

A €255m discount

The KSA asked EOD Code for financial data on 26 May 2026 and received no reply. It instead applied its search volume method, estimating the brands’ 2025 Dutch gross gaming revenue at €108.4 million.

With the aggravating factors, the fine reached 270% of that figure, or €292.6 million. Dutch law caps penalties at 10% of worldwide turnover, which the KSA put at almost €373 million, so the fine was cut to €37.25 million.

The same ceiling held down the record Novatech penalty in March 2026. Novatech, the operator of Qbet.com and 55bet.com, was fined €24.8 million. The KSA said that fine would otherwise have exceeded €100 million. In 2024, Gammix, behind rantcasino.com and betoriginal.com, was fined almost €20 million.

EOD Code has six weeks to pay, after which statutory interest applies. It can lodge an objection within the same period, but an objection does not suspend the decision.

Offshore licensing, tricky collection

Collection is the open question for an offshore operator that has not engaged with the regulator at any stage. The KSA is also targeting the platforms around such operators.

In a blog post on 14 October, KSA chair Michel Groothuizen wrote that the legal route against Big Tech remains open if voluntary efforts fall short. Trade body VNLOK has already sued Meta over illegal gambling ads.

With channelisation at 53% in the second half of 2025, close to half of Dutch gross gaming revenue is going to illegal platforms. The search volume method lets the KSA price a penalty without a single figure from the operator. In both record cases, it was the 10% cap that set the final amount.