With the introduction of new igaming laws in the Netherlands, the gambling giant, Kindred decided to temporarily withdraw from the market and block all Dutch customers until it receives a permanent license from authorities.
Now Kindred has shown the impact of this decision after posting its first quarter results for 2022.
The group saw its revenues drop by 30% year on year to £247 million. Kindred said that if the Netherlands was taken out of the equation, revenue would only have dropped 5% year on year.
Kindred’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization reached £25 million – 76.4% less than Q1 of 2021.
The decision to close its sites to players from the Netherlands was not one taken lightly by Kindred, especially knowing that it would negatively impact revenue like this.
Initially the company’s CEO said that it was Kindred’s belief that it didn’t need to take such drastic steps, as long as it didn’t follow a policy of targeting Dutch players.
However, Kindred later confirmed that its sites would block these players until it receives a license from the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) regulator.
The authority has made it very clear that it would have a zero-tolerance policy for any company which operated without a license.
Minister of Legal Protection, Sander Dekker, noted: “I want to prevent players from getting the opportunity offered to continue to play with illegal providers on a large scale.”
