Dutch Watchdog KVA Says Google Autocomplete Points Users to Illegal Casinos

^{KVA says Google's autocomplete and suggested-search features are pointing Dutch consumers toward gambling sites operating outside the country's regulated market. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)}

Keurmerk Verantwoorde Affiliates (KVA), the Dutch casino affiliate quality mark, said this week that Google's search autocomplete and suggested-query features are directing consumers toward online casinos operating outside the Netherlands' regulated market.

In a statement posted to LinkedIn on Monday, as reported by iGaming Business, KVA said its research, based largely on data collected in Chrome's incognito mode to exclude personalised search history, had identified autocomplete and pre-fill queries that surfaced illegal gambling platforms directly to users.

Among the examples KVA cited were phrases such as "online casino zonder Cruks" ("online casino without Cruks," a reference to the Netherlands' self-exclusion register) and "beste online casino buitenland" ("best online casino abroad"), both of which returned suggestions pointing toward unauthorised operators or sites built to redirect Dutch users to illegal offers.

KVA Wants Action Beyond Paid Ads

KVA acknowledged that Google has cooperated on removing paid advertisements promoting illegal casinos, but said the company needs to take more comprehensive steps to address its organic search results, where such recommendations continue to appear.

The concern echoes questions Dutch MPs have raised previously. In December 2025, CDA MP Straatman asked the government whether sites advertising as "Beste casino's zonder Cruks" should be taken offline immediately. In a written response published in January 2026, then state secretary Arno Rutte acknowledged that enforcement against such sites remained limited, particularly for domains not registered under the .nl extension, according to iGaming Business.

KVA said Google needs to take more comprehensive measures addressing organic search results, not just paid advertising.

The Kansspelautoriteit, the Netherlands' gambling regulator, has separately pursued enforcement action against unlicensed operators and affiliates promoting them since the country's regulated online market opened in 2021, though officials have acknowledged that search-driven traffic remains one of the harder channels to police. KVA's own code requires member affiliates to only promote operators holding a valid Dutch licence.

Parliament Presses Meta and Google

Last week, a cross-party committee of Dutch MPs also raised concerns about the role of Meta and Google in supporting the country's black market for gambling, with candidates from the VVD party urging a "harder stance" against the platforms. Current state secretary for Justice and Security KT van Bruggen told the gambling committee that both companies had agreed to maintain a dialogue with the government and that ministers would receive a report every six months on illegal gambling advertising across the platforms, a pattern seen elsewhere in the Netherlands' online gambling market.

KVA's intervention is part of a broader European trend of regulators scrutinising how major platforms facilitate traffic to unlicensed gambling services. In Germany, the GGL has credited an updated Google ad policy with reducing black-market visibility in paid search, while noting that illegal operators can still gain traction through organic search-engine manipulation.