A Dutch court has ruled in favor of a pair of online-poker players who filed suit against PokerStars and bwin Poker, respectively, who sought refunds of their losses of their losses on the sites on the basis that the sites had been operating illegally, being non-licensed under Netherlands law.
In the rulings, issued separately today by European Court judge Evelien Rozeboon, PokerStars and bwin were both ordered to issue refunds in the amounts of the net losses of the two players, in addition to interest and assorted legal fees and court cases.
Together, the ordered refunds amount to more than $400,000, and as the plaintiffs in the cases remain unnamed under Dutch law, it is possible that both cases involved the same player. The PokerStars case, however, involved 15 years of online activity, while the bwin case covered only two years.
Both plaintiffs were represented by Amsterdam-based attorney Benzi Loonstein, who described the rulings as "groundbreaking" verdicts, as they potentially open the door to massive amounts of litigation. Loonstein acknowledged that he is already working on behalf of about 15 clients.
Neither PokerStars, through its corporate parent TSG Interactiver Gaming Europe Ltd., nor bwin, through its corporate parent Electraworks Europe Ltd., have responded publicly to the rulings. Neither company has announced any plans to appeal the rulings to the extent allowed under Dutch law. Both companies are based in Malta.
PokerStars ordered to refund roughly $235,000
In the case involving the PokerStars player, the Court of Overijssel ordered PokerStars to refund US $230,705.22 and €400, the total of the funds that were deposited on PokerStars and lost between 2006 and 2021. The losses were mainly from online poker, according to the ruling, but also included some losses from online casino games and sports betting.
PokerStars was also ordered to pay a small amount of statutory interest, but only from the time a court summons was issued in the case, around August 1, 2023. The court also ordered Stars to pay €2,838.24 in extrajudicial collection costs, plus another €8,012.14 in assorted court and legal fees. PokerStars has 14 days to pay the judgment.
PokerStars, in arguing its side of the case, claimed that ruling in favor of the plaintif would mean that he was being allowed to gamble without risk, in effect freerolling the site. Judge Rozeboom rejected that argument on the basis that the contract between the player and PokerStars was declared null and void, meaning that it had never existed in a legal sense, and thus any fees charged under those terms of service were not allowable.
The judge also rejected a parallel defense argument that the losses the player incurred were to other online poker player and not to PokerStars itself. The judge's rationale for rejecting that defense was that the plaintiff deposited the money into an account created and hosted by PokerStars, and the losses were paid out of that account's balance to other players, in addition to any fees that PokerStars itself earned in the process.
Bwin ordered to refund roughly €187,600
In the largely parallel bwin case, Judge Rozeboom ordered bwin to refund €187,621.96, the net amount that the two sides eventually agreed that the plaintiff lost online between January 2018 and November 2019. Bwin will also be subject to a small statutory interest charge, calculated from August 4, 2023, and was assessed another €8,012.14 in assorted court fees. Like PokerStars, Bwin was given 14 days to pay the judgment.
Bwin offered different legal arguments than PokerStars in defense of its case but did not achieve any change in the outcome. Bwin argued that ongoing revisions in the Netherlands' online-gambling laws rendered certain parts of those laws inapplicable at various times, allowing bwin to legally offer services to Dutch players without being licensed. The judge rejected that line of defense.
Both PokerStars and bwin had previously run afoul of Dutch gaming regulators as well, perhaps making the Dutch court view some of the defense arguments in a colder light. In 2019, PokerStars was fined €400,000 and bwin was fined €350,000 by the Netherlands' Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), in separate cases, again for operating without a license in the country.
