Online gambling company Unibet and another unnamed company have been ordered to pay back large sums of money to gamblers who used the sites before online betting was legalized in the Netherlands.

A group of gamblers who had lost large sums of money on the websites before October 2021, when online gambling was licenced in the Netherlands, had gone to court to recover the cash. 

Judges have now ruled that at least two firms must pay back money. Unibet has been told to pay one gambler €93,000 and in a separate case, the unnamed company has been told to pay back €124,000.

The two websites had failed to heed a summons to appear in court and did not mount any defence. 

Unibet said in a written reaction that it would appeal against the ruling, which means the case will be heard in detail at a later date. 

Lawyer Benzi Loonstein told Nieuwsuur in August that the case is simple. “If a company is operating in contravention of the law, it has no right to the money it earned,” he said. 

Hundreds of similar cases have been successfully fought in Germany and Austria. 

Unibet is based on Malta where some 10% of the economy is dependent on gambling. Malta recently passed legislation that would allow gambling companies to set aside claims made by gamblers in other countries for cash refunds.