Circus has won a lawsuit filed by a player who felt the online casino had failed in its duty of care. According to the court, gambling companies were not yet obligated in November 2023 to intervene when a player lost €20,000 in three weeks, and current regulations cannot be applied retroactively.
A Dutch gambler filed a lawsuit against the legal online casino Circus. The gambler claimed that Circus had breached its duty of care because he lost over €20,000 in a three-week period. He also asserted that he was registered in Cruks (the Dutch self-exclusion register) and therefore should never have been allowed access to the online casino.
The gambler registered with Circus on November 30, 2022, but did not use his account for a year after that date. In the meantime, he claimed to have registered with Cruks on February 27, 2023.
Submitting Documents
When the man tried to log in to Circus on November 3, 2023, a year after his registration, he was asked to re-upload his identification. He was unable to do this through the normal channels and sought help from a customer service representative via the Circus chat. As a result of the chat conversation, the man received several emails asking him to upload additional documents:
- An identification document;
- A document stating his citizen service number;
- A document stating his address.
The man successfully provided the first two documents, but the last document was not accepted by Circus. The bank statement he provided showed a different address than the one he had given during registration.
Because the man had completed the verification process via iDIN (an online identification system), which provided Circus with his correct address, he was able to deposit funds into the online casino that afternoon. In the three weeks that followed, the man lost €20,117 at Circus.
Several days later, on November 28, 2023, the man emailed Circus requesting a refund of his losses. The gambling company immediately closed his account. On February 12, the man sent Circus a letter demanding repayment of his money. After an internal investigation, the license holder responded several weeks later that the player would not receive his lost money back.
Detecting Change Was Not Possible
The man did not accept Circus’s response and filed a lawsuit against the gambling company regarding its duty of care. He argued that Circus had violated the duty of care applicable to gambling companies in several ways:
- The gambling company allegedly allowed him access to the online casino without verifying his address details. The bank statement the man had sent was rejected, yet he was still able to gamble.
- The man claimed to have been registered in Cruks during the period from November 3 to 23, 2023. This was allegedly confirmed by another gambling company, TOTO, in a message via Facebook Messenger.
- The man allegedly exhibited deviant gambling behavior, and therefore Circus should have intervened during the aforementioned period.
Circus, assisted by legal counsel, denied breaching its duty of care, arguing that validation of the address details was not necessary. The email requesting additional address documents was allegedly sent in error. According to Circus, his address details had already been checked during the registration process using iDIN.
Additionally, Circus claimed to have performed a Cruks check with every login attempt by the man. In all cases, it was reported that the man was not registered. The Facebook Messenger message from TOTO was not considered evidence. The man could have unregistered from Cruks after six months, from August 27, 2023.
Finally, Circus stated that, in the context of the duty of care, it had to monitor changes in the playing behavior of its players during the relevant playing period. Because the man had not played in the year after his registration, no playing behavior was known.
Court Confirms: Duty of Care Not Breached
The court sided with Circus: at the time of playing, different rules were in effect regarding the duty of care. During the period in question, losing relatively large amounts was not a signal of excessive participation:
“Suffering a certain gambling loss or making certain net deposits were not, during the playing period, signals specified by law and regulations that indicated excessive participation or gambling addiction. This does not exclude that, under certain circumstances, even then, a gambling provider could be expected to intervene based on, for example, the size of the deposits or long playing time. This was not the case with [plaintiff]…”
Amsterdam District Court
The new rules regarding playing limits and responsible gaming came into effect a year after the gambler’s playing period. In its ruling, the court therefore took into account the laws and regulations in force at that time. In addition, the man had remained within his self-imposed limits at all times:
“The fact that [plaintiff] gambled away an amount of €20,117 spread over three weeks is indeed substantial, but not in itself such that intervention was required at the time. It also plays a role that [plaintiff] always remained within his self-imposed daily and monthly deposit limits.”
Amsterdam District Court
Regarding the Cruks registration, Circus had allegedly provided sufficient evidence that the mandatory Cruks checks were carried out. The Facebook post submitted by the gambler was considered insufficient evidence, partly because the authenticity of the ‘evidence’ was questioned. According to the court, the Facebook profile picture of TOTO and the date and time display on the screenshot did not match a conversation that would have taken place in November 2023.
“Furthermore, the report of the Facebook Messenger message traffic with TOTO submitted by [plaintiff] is insufficient to serve as evidence that [plaintiff] was still registered during the playing period. During the oral hearing, Betca brought forward sufficient inconsistencies to doubt the reliability of this report. Among other things, the profile picture of TOTO and the time and date display do not correspond to a chat conversation that would actually have taken place on November 11, 2023. Also, the statement of [plaintiff] that he translated the chat conversation from Polish, without this being clear from the print, raises questions.”
Amsterdam District Court
The court therefore ruled that Circus had not breached its duty of care and ordered the gambler to pay the legal costs of the lawsuit, amounting to €1,221.
Response from Legal Counsel
Asked for a response, the law firm representing Circus’s parent organization, Betca, expressed satisfaction with the ruling regarding the duty of care and Circus. The law firm welcomes the court’s definition of the concept of duty of care:
“Licensed providers are increasingly confronted with claims from players who are trying to recover their losses. This is partly the result of ongoing proceedings against unlicensed providers regarding the period before October 1, 2021. However, many of the claims filed against the license holders are unfounded. Betca went for a fundamental legal test in this specific case — and with success: the Amsterdam District Court has further defined the interpretation of the duty of care in a clearly reasoned judgment, and rejected the player’s claims.”
Franssen Tolboom Advocaten
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