Thousands of players are demanding their gambling losses back
Two players lose well over €100,000 at casinos in Malta
One player lost more than USD 139,000 at Pokerstars between 2006 and 2021; another lost around €135,000 at partycasino.com in 2020-2021. Both casinos (TSG Interactive and Electraworks) are based in Malta and held no licence to offer online games of chance in the Netherlands. Both players sought to recover their losses, arguing that the gaming contract was void.
That question deeply divided the case law. In the case against Trannel (part of Kindred Group, formerly Unibet), the District Court of Overijssel ordered the company to repay €676,224 to a player who, by his own account, stopped 'because the money had run out'. The District Courts of Overijssel and Noord-Nederland held that the agreement was void. Other courts took the opposite line: the District Court of Zeeland-West-Brabant dismissed the claim of a Bwin player (€94,479), and the Amsterdam Court of Appeal had already held, in the Unibet judgment (2016), that a loss of €184,671 was not recoverable.
To end this division, the District Courts of Amsterdam and Noord-Holland referred preliminary questions to the Supreme Court (Section 392 DCCP).
Supreme Court: Section 1 Wok does not affect the validity of the agreement
The Supreme Court holds that agreements with a provider who breaches the prohibition in Section 1 Wok are neither void nor voidable under Section 3:40 DCC. Entering into such an agreement may indeed conflict with a mandatory statutory provision (subsection 2), but subsection 3 does not lead to nullity: from the outset the Wok was never intended to affect the validity of legal acts that conflict with it. The Act provides for administrative and criminal sanctions but is silent on the civil-law consequences.
That interpretation is historically rooted. Under the old Lotteries Act, the Supreme Court still held in 1918 that the purchase of a ticket in a prohibited lottery had an unlawful cause. Since 1951, however, breach of a statutory prohibition no longer automatically entails nullity, unless the purpose of the provision requires it. Had the legislature intended nullity when enacting the Wok (1964) or the later Remote Gaming Act, it would have had to say so. It did not. Nor does Section 3:40(1) DCC (conflict with public order or good morals) lead to nullity: applying the standard from the Esmilo/Mediq judgment, the Supreme Court considers that gaming contracts are not in themselves impermissible and that the Wok already provides for sanctions.
Unlike part of the lower-court case law, the Supreme Court therefore does not base this on a 'loss of purpose' — the idea that the Wok has lost its original effect through social developments. According to the Supreme Court that purpose simply never existed. It does remain the case that, in certain circumstances, such an agreement may be voidable on account of a defect of consent or may give rise to a claim in tort.
What does this mean for players and providers?
For players, the shortest route to their money is now closed. Nullity coupled with recovery through undue payment — the basis on which courts ordered casinos to repay hundreds of thousands of euros — is off the table. Anyone seeking to recover their losses must now, for these consumer claims, rely on mistake or tort. That is a harder road: the player must assert and prove that the casino misled him or breached a duty of care, and the court will weigh the participant's own responsibility in the balance. In the Bwin and Unibet cases the claims foundered precisely on that point: the provider had taken responsible-gaming measures and the player bore responsibility for his own gambling behaviour. For providers, the validity of historic agreements is thereby settled; the risk shifts from full restitution to targeted liability for concretely demonstrable loss. How a claim based on that duty of care proceeds, what it yields and whether the judgment can be collected is covered in Can you recover gambling losses from an online casino?
Frequently asked questions
Can I still recover my online gambling losses?
No longer on the basis that the agreement is void. The Supreme Court has closed off that route. Recovery remains possible if the player can show that the casino misled him (mistake or unfair commercial practices) or breached a duty of care (tort), but the burden of proof is considerably heavier.
What is the difference between nullity and a reliance on mistake or tort?
Where an agreement is void, it does not exist in law and all stakes must be returned as undue payment, regardless of fault. With mistake or tort, the player must prove a specific wrong — misleading conduct or breach of a duty of care — and causation and contributory fault come into play. The outcome is therefore far less self-evident.
Does this also apply to a casino with a foreign licence?
Yes. What matters is whether the provider holds a Dutch licence. A Maltese or Gibraltar licence does not suffice: without a Dutch licence the provider breaches Section 1 Wok. Even so, the agreement is not void, not even where the casino does hold a licence elsewhere.
Supreme Court 3 July 2026, ECLI:NL:HR:2026:1159 (Opinion of Advocate General Lindenbergh: ECLI:NL:PHR:2025:1302).
Cited case law
Supreme Court: ECLI:NL:HR:1918:112 · ECLI:NL:HR:1951:AG1976 · ECLI:NL:HR:2012:BU5609 · ECLI:NL:HR:2026:1159
Advocate General: ECLI:NL:PHR:2025:1302
Courts of Appeal: ECLI:NL:GHAMS:2016:4212
District Courts: ECLI:NL:RBOVE:2024:3191 · ECLI:NL:RBNNE:2024:1971 · ECLI:NL:RBZWB:2024:3524