According to Dutch trade association VNLOK, Facebook and Instagram in the Netherlands remain exposed to illegal gambling advertisements. The trade group claims that between 94% and 97% of gambling advertisements reaching Dutch users in May and June 2026 were from unlicensed operators.
VNLOK explained that the Facebook pages were not recognizable as gambling providers and spanned more than a hundred different categories. Ads spanned fan pages, municipality pages, marketing agencies, entertainment websites and personal blogs. VNLOK added that this fragmentation made page-level detection difficult and allowed advertisers to continue operating under a new identity immediately after being removed.
The group based its report on the analysis of 65,000 gambling advertisements. It found that 96.5% of the advertisements in May were illegal, while the corresponding figure for June was 93.7%. Among advertisements linked to identified Facebook pages, 96% were associated with illegal operators in May. This share increased to 98.8% in June. According to VNLOK’s findings, the number of Facebook pages carrying gambling advertisements also rose sharply, from 697 in May to 3,237 in June.
VNLOK also said that the ads had a short lifespan, remaining online for an average of 1.58 days in May and two days in June. Around 76% of advertisements in May ran for less than 24 hours, compared with 65% in June. VNLOK said Meta removed 11% of the more than 60,000 illegal advertisements it identified in May, with the removal rate increasing to 15% in June.
How Are These Ads Proliferated and Who Is Most Vulnerable?
According tо VNLOK, there are several tactics used to circumvent moderation, including cloaking, redirects to Telegram and the unauthorised use of established Dutch gambling brands. Cloaking allows advertisers to display different landing pages to different users. For example, a regulator may be shown an error message, while a potential customer is directed to an illegal casino application.
Earlier this summer, VNLOK initiated legal proceedings against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and lodged a complaint with the European Commission. The group called on Meta to verify gambling advertisers targeting the Netherlands before their advertisements are allowed to run.
Dutch law also prohibits gambling advertisements from specifically targeting young adults aged 18 to 23. However, an academic review of 277 advertisements in Meta’s library identified violations among both online and land-based licensees. The review found that 7.3% of advertisements from online licensees targeted users in this age group, compared with 29.8% of advertisements from land-based licensees.
Although people aged 18 to 23 are legally permitted to gamble in the Netherlands, policymakers consider them a group that warrants additional protection from gambling advertising.
VNLOK isn’t the only Dutch organization calling out Meta for allowing illegal gambling ads on their platforms. Earlier this month, BNR, a Dutch radio station, also called out Facebook and Instagram, claiming they are targeting illegal gambling ads towards vulnerable social media users.