Online Poker in the Netherlands

Legal Dutch poker Sites & laws in 2026

Online poker has been legal in the Netherlands since October 2021, but the licensed market is small. Only four operators hold a KSA permit to offer real-money poker, which is a short list next to the dozens of rooms you'd find in the UK or Malta. This page covers who's actually licensed, how the legal side differs for online versus physical play, the rules of the game, the main variants, and where poker sits under Dutch law.

Which poker sites are legal in the Netherlands?

Four operators currently hold a KSA licence to offer online poker for money:

• GGPoker, the largest of the four, with the deepest tournament schedule and the most modern software.
• Holland Casino Online, the digital arm of the state-owned operator and the only brand that also runs live poker in physical venues.
• Unibet, often the easier field for recreational players, with a softer player pool.
• Bet365, strong for cash games and fast-format tables, drawing on a large international player base.

That's the full list as of 2026. The much longer roster that circulated when the market opened, names like FPO, NSUS, Tombola and LiveScore, was the initial 2021 application list, and most of those never launched poker or have since left the Dutch market. Always confirm a site's status on the KSA register and look for the licence mark in the site footer before depositing.

Live poker at Holland Casino

For poker in a physical room, Holland Casino is the only legal option, and it has been since 1975. Several venues run managed poker rooms, including Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Valkenburg and Breda. The offer covers cash games (Texas Hold'em and Omaha), daily Sit & Go's, multi-table tournaments, and high-roller events with qualifiers. Licensed dealers run every table, and buy-ins for the smaller tournaments start around €20. For the wider picture on the operator, see our Holland Casino review.

The rules of poker

The standard game is Texas Hold'em, and the structure is the same online or at the table. You're dealt two private cards, then five community cards come face up in stages, and you make the best five-card hand from those seven.

Each hand has four betting rounds, and you decide each round whether to stay in or fold. The first bets come after you see your two cards. Three community cards (the flop) follow, then a fourth (the turn), then a fifth (the river), with a chance to bet after each. You win the pot either by showing the best hand at the end or by betting in a way that convinces everyone else to fold, which is where bluffing earns its keep. In short:

• Two players post forced bets to start the hand.
• Everyone gets two face-down cards.
• A betting round follows, bluffing allowed.
• Five community cards are dealt face up across three stages, with betting after each.
• The best five-card hand still in at showdown takes the pot.

Poker variants worth knowing

Texas Hold'em dominates, but the category is broad. The Dutch licensed rooms mainly offer Hold'em (No Limit and Pot Limit), Omaha and Stud. Beyond those:

• Seven-Card Stud (High and High/Low), where you build the best five from seven cards, some face up, some down.
• 2-to-7 Triple Draw Lowball, where the lowest hand wins.
• Five-Card Stud, like Five-Card Draw but with one card down and the rest up.
• Razz, played for the lowest hand, aiming for ace-to-five.

There's also a separate family of house-banked poker games where you play against the casino rather than other players, such as Caribbean Poker, Pai Gow and Video Poker. These behave more like casino table games than true poker, since there's no bluffing and no opponents. Video Poker is the curiosity here, because a few pay tables can return over 100% with perfect play, though that's rare and depends entirely on the specific machine.

Tournaments versus cash games

Money poker splits into two formats. In a tournament you pay an entry fee for a fixed stack of chips (1,500 or 3,000, say) and play until you either win everyone's chips or lose your own. The prize pool, and what each finishing position pays, depends on the field size and the entry fee. Cash games work differently: chips equal real money, you can join or leave any time, and you're playing each hand for its actual stake rather than for tournament survival.

Is poker legal, and is it a game of chance?

Dutch law treats poker as a game of chance. Just like roulette and blackjack A Supreme Court ruling on 3 March 1998 classified it that way under the Gaming Act, which makes it a casino game in legal terms. The practical consequence: only licensed casinos may organise poker for money, online under a KSA permit and in physical venues only through Holland Casino.

Private versus commercial play

The law doesn't reach into your living room. Playing poker at home with friends is fine, because it's personal rather than commercial. The line is whether the game is offered on a regular, systematic or profit-making basis, renting rooms, charging entry, advertising, and so on. A poker night in a bar is usually treated as public and commercial, so it needs a licence, although a group of friends playing privately in that same bar can still count as a private event. For more on how the regulator draws these lines, see our overview of the Remote Gambling Act. 

Tax and player protection

At a licensed Dutch site you pay no tax on your poker winnings, because the operator handles the gambling tax. Play through an operator without a Dutch licence and the picture flips: winnings can become taxable, and you lose the consumer protections that come with regulation. Every licensed room has to verify your identity and age, run anti-money-laundering checks, and offer deposit and time limits, with CRUKS self-exclusion available if you need to step away. Our rundown of safer-play tools covers what to set up first. 

How many people play poker in the Netherlands?

Research suggests around 3% of the population plays poker in some form, at home, online, in a casino or elsewhere, which works out to roughly 400,000 to 440,000 people aged 16 and over. Plenty of that is social play rather than money games, the home games and casual tables that sit outside the commercial rules entirely.

Frequently asked questions

Play responsibly. Poker is entertainment, and over the short run luck plays a large part. Only stake what you can afford to lose and set your limits before you sit down. If it stops being fun, consider CRUKS self-exclusion, and find support through AGOG. 18+.