Abstract
Background and aims:
Many countries have legalised gambling, negatively impacting public health. Stakeholders are particularly concerned about online gambling advertising harming young adults. The Netherlands has legalised offline and online gambling, but subsequently introduced restrictions on advertising. Specifically, advertisements must not target young adults aged between 18 and 23. The EU Digital Services Act requires major social media platforms to publish databases of all paid adverts shown and disclose which demographic groups were the intended targets and how many users were eventually reached. We assessed whether Dutch gambling ads on social media illegally targeted under-24s.
Methods:
We systematically collected recent advertisements (N = 277) published by both online and offline Dutch gambling licensees and associated demographic targeting and reach data using Meta's Ad Library. We then assessed whether the age range of users targeted by those ads included prohibited targets.
Results:
The compliance rate was 92.7% for online gambling licensee ads, but only 70.2% for offline licensee ads.
Discussion:
A significant minority of gambling ads illegally targeted Dutch young adults under 24. Whilst compliance is relatively high, building some confidence, the regulator must robustly enforce the rule against all licensees. Meta should adopt platform-level changes to reduce compliance friction.
Conclusions:
Prohibiting gambling adverts from targeting vulnerable demographics using technology is a practicable policy. Legally mandated data access can facilitate public scrutiny of policy implementation, enhancing accountability. Other countries may benefit from emulating these Dutch gambling advertising restrictions and EU advertising transparency regulations, better protecting vulnerable consumer demographics and enabling local research.
© 2026 The Author(s)
Many countries have legalised gambling, negatively impacting public health. Stakeholders are particularly concerned about online gambling advertising harming young adults. The Netherlands has legalised offline and online gambling, but subsequently introduced restrictions on advertising. Specifically, advertisements must not target young adults aged between 18 and 23. The EU Digital Services Act requires major social media platforms to publish databases of all paid adverts shown and disclose which demographic groups were the intended targets and how many users were eventually reached. We assessed whether Dutch gambling ads on social media illegally targeted under-24s.
Methods:
We systematically collected recent advertisements (N = 277) published by both online and offline Dutch gambling licensees and associated demographic targeting and reach data using Meta's Ad Library. We then assessed whether the age range of users targeted by those ads included prohibited targets.
Results:
The compliance rate was 92.7% for online gambling licensee ads, but only 70.2% for offline licensee ads.
Discussion:
A significant minority of gambling ads illegally targeted Dutch young adults under 24. Whilst compliance is relatively high, building some confidence, the regulator must robustly enforce the rule against all licensees. Meta should adopt platform-level changes to reduce compliance friction.
Conclusions:
Prohibiting gambling adverts from targeting vulnerable demographics using technology is a practicable policy. Legally mandated data access can facilitate public scrutiny of policy implementation, enhancing accountability. Other countries may benefit from emulating these Dutch gambling advertising restrictions and EU advertising transparency regulations, better protecting vulnerable consumer demographics and enabling local research.
© 2026 The Author(s)
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 833–845 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Journal of Behavioral Addictions |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Online published | 29 Apr 2026 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jun 2026 |
Funding
This study was partially funded by an Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling (AFSG) Postgraduate Research Support Grant awarded to L.Y.X. that was derived from ‘regulatory settlements applied for socially responsible purposes’ received by the UK Gambling Commission and administered by Greo Evidence Insights (Greo) (July 2024). L.Y.X. is supported by a Presidential Assistant Professors Scheme Start-Up Research Grant (9382009) awarded by the City University of Hong Kong [香港城市大學] (March 2025), and C.D. is supported by a PhD Studentship and an Institutional Research Tuition Grant funded by that project.
UN SDGs
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
-
SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure -
SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production -
SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Research Keywords
- gambling law
- advertising regulation
- social media
- youth protection
- the Netherlands
- transparency
- data access
- EU Digital Services Act
- policy compliance and implementation
Publisher's Copyright Statement
- This full text is made available under CC-BY-NC 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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