The Netherlands raised its gambling tax twice in two years to fill the state's coffers. The result so far has been the opposite of the plan: tax receipts have fallen, not risen, and the regulator now says the increase has missed its target. A new impact assessment due at the end of June 2026 is expected to confirm what the figures have hinted at all year, that taxing a shrinking market harder doesn't produce more revenue.
The plan, and the maths behind it
The gambling tax (kansspelbelasting) was lifted in two steps: from 30.5% to 34.2% on 1 January 2025, then to 37.8% on 1 January 2026. The Centraal Planbureau projected the first step would bring in around €100 million extra, and the second roughly €200 million on top. Those numbers assumed the taxable base, the gross gaming result operators report, would stay broadly flat while the rate climbed.
It didn't stay flat. The KSA's own effect measurement found that gross gaming result fell across both the online and land-based markets through 2025, and because the base shrank, the higher rate produced less revenue rather than more. The regulator estimated 2025 receipts would land around €40 million (about 5%) below 2024, the reverse of the intended €100 million gain.
Why the base shrank
Two forces pulled in the same direction. The tax rise squeezed operator margins, and at the same time a set of new player-protection rules, the responsible-play policy and the deposit-limit regime introduced in October 2024, cut into how much players deposited and lost. KSA chair Michel Groothuizen put it plainly: the measures taken to protect players made things financially harder for operators, the gross gaming result fell across the whole market, and tax receipts fell with it.
The land-based side has been hit hardest, because physical casinos and arcades have fewer levers to pull. Online operators can trim payout percentages or other costs to absorb some of the blow; a bricks-and-mortar venue can't. The KSA noted a 9% drop in the number of land-based gaming locations in the first quarter of 2025 against the final quarter of 2024, a faster decline than before.
The bigger leak: money flowing offshore
The revenue shortfall isn't only about smaller margins. It's also about where the money goes. The same period saw the illegal online market grow to the point where, in the first half of 2025, it was larger than the legal one, estimated at roughly €617 million against the legal market's €600 million. The spring 2026 monitoring report reinforced the pattern: 91% of players stay legal, but only 53% of the money does.
That is the core of the problem. A higher rate on the legal market gives the heaviest spenders one more reason to drift toward unlicensed sites that charge them nothing and protect them not at all, which shrinks the legal base further. The KSA has long described the legal and illegal markets as communicating vessels; tax policy is now testing that idea in real time.
What happens next
KSA director Ella Seijsener told the Gaming in Holland Conference in early June 2026 that the end-of-June impact assessment would show the tax rise had not reached its intended goal, with less revenue coming in because the base had contracted. Holland Casino, which paid €222.6 million in gambling tax in 2024, had already called on the government to scrap the 2026 increase, arguing it can't be squared with a policy of safer, more responsible gambling.
So far the political response has been to absorb the lower receipts rather than reverse course. The previous state secretary acknowledged the increase might affect problem-gambling numbers, and his successor said disappointing revenue was no reason to change the policy, treating the shortfall as a budget matter. A new remote-gambling bill is expected to go to consultation in the second half of 2026, which is where any rethink would surface. For the detail on how the tax reached this point, see our page on the Dutch gambling tax, and for the market data behind it, our market statistics overview. [CHECK URL on both.]
The wider lesson is one other sectors may recognise: raising a tax rate and raising tax revenue are not the same thing when the thing you're taxing can move, shrink, or leave.
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