In early July, the Dutch Lower House approved a bill that would legislate and regulate online gaming including online poker. At the time, industry experts believed the bill would quickly pass through the country's Senate and become the law of the land by early 2017.
However, after months of waiting, this target date is now unlikely to be met, especially considering the Senate recently published written questions to the bill that the secretary of state is required to respond to before the vote.
One of the major questions that needs to be answered is whether the target rate of 80 percent of Dutch players will play on regulated sites despite the bill's higher taxes than earlier proposals and the lack of the gaming regulator's ability to block DNS and IP addresses.