New gambling law in Belgium brings changes

So far, the 1999 Gambling Act was final in Belgium. The Belgian constitutional court now overridden this law with immediate effect last Thursday. The law decided and adopted in April 2019 had so far been subordinate and thus remained ineffective. The law adopted 2 years ago is now valid due to the out of out of the end of the old gambling law.

Effects, especially in the online sector

Reports by the Belgian newspaper L’écho will have the 2019 gambling law extensive effects on the online gambling sector. Because the online gambling was only popular years after the old law came into force, the old law was simply not applicable in many points. This means that the online sector has not yet had such strict regulations. This will change with the 2019 law.

In Belgium, not only state providers, but also private gambling providers can apply for a license for online gambling. The seat of the companies can be in both Belgian and abroad. As a result, players in the country have a very large selection of legal and licensed gambling websites compared to other European countries. All 9 Belgian casinos are currently in possession of a valid license for online gambling. In addition, 26 online bookmakers and 41 operators of online game halls are also licensed. With this, 76 companies have a license. On the other hand, 270 companies are on the black list of the Commission. Well -known providers such as Betfair, GGPoker, Interwetten and William Hill can also be found on this.

Separation according to game categories

A clearer design of the online gambling market is a main goal of the new Gambling Act. Play categories should be clearly delimited from each other. In the future, there should be no website that will offer more than one kind of gambling. For online bookmakers who want to continue to offer sports betting, this means that they have to remove all other varieties completely or outsource them on other websites. If, for example, a licensed bookmaker also has a license for online slot machines, he would have to offer the services on various websites. A link to the website is prohibited. The players should not be able to make any cross -page customer accounts. In addition, the URLs would have to “significantly differ”.

There were many discussions about this measure. Ultimately, however, the court decided that “the separation of the play divisions in relation to the fight against excessive gambling could act like a kind of ‘brake'”. More precisely, it was said: “It is correct that it is very easy in virtual space to switch from one website to another, or to open several websites on the same computer at the same time. […] However, the fact is that the need to open several websites and to have to identify themselves on each individual could represent a kind of brake for the player ”.

In the justification of the court, he said that the players would less often come across offers that they would not have been looking for. For example, if you enter a website to bet on a sports event, you will not be distracted by slot machines.

Bank holder games only offered by casinos

The new gambling law also stipulates that the typical bank holder games such as Baccarat, Roulette or blackjack in the future can only be offered legally on the websites of the licensed casinos. Poker games, on the other hand, can also be offered by licensed online poker rooms. However, these may only offer poker on the website. The biggest change in the new Gambling Act is ergo that many now Online gambling providers, who have normally have many different games of chance on the same website, have to reduce their offer or have to outsource them on other websites.