Plans to set up a state-owned internet gambling website in the Netherlands fell apart on Tuesday when the upper house of parliament rejected the bill to make it possible.

Justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin wanted to give the state’s gambling monopoly Holland Casino a three-year contract to run an internet gambling site in an effort to head-off foreign competition. Some 400,000 Dutch nationals are thought to indulge in online gambling.
Holland Casino said it feared gambling addiction would increase because there was no legal, properly-regulated alternative to illegal foreign sites.
The Netherlands’ gambling laws are currently under EU fire.