Meta’s illegal gambling ad problem spans Europe, and regulators are noticing – well-played.com.au

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Dutch trade body VNLOK has summoned Meta before the Amsterdam court over illegal gambling adverts, and it is not the only European authority pressing the company on the same issue.
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VNLOK, the Netherlands’ gambling trade association, has taken Meta to court in Amsterdam over illegal gambling adverts reaching Dutch consumers.
The trade body summoned Meta before the Amsterdam court on 28 September, claiming the company does too little to stop illegal gambling adverts on Facebook and Instagram. VNLOK says more than 90% of the Facebook gambling adverts it examined came from illegal sites, and that Meta removed 11% of them in May and 15% in June.
Those figures are VNLOK’s own research rather than a regulatory finding, and Meta has not publicly responded to the claims. VNLOK wants the court to declare that Meta is failing its obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA) and to order stronger prevention, with daily penalties if the company does not comply. It has also asked the European Commission to investigate and potentially impose sanctions.
The Dutch case is not an isolated dispute. Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM issued an enforcement decision against Meta in December 2023 under Italy’s national gambling advertising ban. Germany’s gambling regulator GGL has reported that restrictions on Google and Meta adverts contributed to measurable declines in illegal gambling advertising there. In the UK, Gambling Commission executive director Tim Miller has publicly criticised Meta’s response to illegal casino advertising.
The legal question in Amsterdam is whether the DSA’s risk-assessment and mitigation duties for very large platforms, set out in Articles 34 and 35, can ground a national court order against Meta. The Act’s Article 6 preserves a conditional liability exemption for hosted content while leaving room for court orders, and Article 8 rules out any general obligation to monitor all user content. No new filtering system has been ordered in the Dutch case.
Even a VNLOK win would be a Dutch remedy: any order would apply to adverts targeting Dutch consumers, and would not settle enforcement in Italy, Germany or the UK. The case and the Commission complaint are both unresolved, and no liability has been found.
A hearing date in Amsterdam has not been set.


Darcy Mullane covers the Australian side of the games industry for WellPlayed: local release dates and pricing, classification decisions, and the studios and events based here.
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