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Helping thousands of people fight gambling addiction

Gambling addictions have a detrimental effect on people’s mental health, relationships and communities, and can lead to bankruptcy and crime. Practical solutions are needed to help reduce the risks to society by helping people overcome gambling issues.

Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Dutch gambling regulator, is tackling this with the Central Register of Exclusion of Games of Chance (CRUKS) – a register of people who have gambling problems. And as their trusted advisor, we are helping them develop the digital platform. People can register themselves on CRUKS or become registered by gaming operators or relatives, if there are safety or wellbeing concerns. This registration gives them a six-month play break, which they can decide to extend themselves. Each time someone wants to join a game, the gaming operator checks CRUKS – and if they are registered on the list, they cannot let them play.

“Netcompany supports and maintains the CRUKS application for the KSA, which is used by the entire Dutch gambling market to perform access checks. The application sees more traffic than was originally estimated, receiving over 200 million requests per year. Netcompany has ensured that we are able to handle that load without any issues.”

CRUKS is already helping to reduce the risks of gambling. Since it launched in October 2021, 25,0002 people have registered – four times more than estimated – and we expect to help more people as this number rises.

1. World Health Organisation (WHO), Addictive behaviour. https://www.who.int/health-topics/addictive-behaviour#tab=tab_3
2. Netcompany, 1 November 2022