A state of uncertainty: the ramifications of incoming gambling restrictions in Belgium

Tighter regulation has been the order of the day for some time in Belgium. Since 1 July 2023, the online gambling sector has faced a blanket ban on gambling advertising across TV, radio, cinemas, magazines, newspapers and billboards. This is on top of prohibition on ads in stadiums and sports sponsorships set to be introduced from 1 January 2025 and 1 January 2028, respectively.  

Then at the start of this year, on 25 January, a draft bill on games of chance, proposed by Green Party MP Stefaan Van Hecke, was passed by the Chamber of Representatives in Belgium, bringing in even stricter rules around responsible gambling (RG). Subsequently, the changes to the Gambling Act of 7/05/1999 were made on 1 March and published in the Belgian Official Gazette (Moniteur Belge), with the new law taking force from 1 September 2024.

The changes include increasing the minimum age of gambling (aside from lottery) from 18 to 21 and that those under the new minimum age limit must be offered refunds. Customers will also be required to open separate online accounts per vertical on each operator site, eg one for casino and one for sports betting. In addition, there is a complete ban on gifts, bonuses or free games and gambling advertising.

The Belgian Association of Gaming Operators (BAGO), comprising members Ardent Group, betFIRST, Golden Palace Casino Sports, Kindred Group, Napoleon Sports & Casinos and Star Casino, has been particularly vocal on its objections to some of the measures. The trade body, which represents 70% of the online and offline private gaming market, put out a press release the day after the draft bill was approved titled A wonderful day for the National Lottery, a black day for player protection.

BAGO points out that the country’s National Lottery is exempt from the proposed advertising ban and the minimum age change. “Only illegal operators and the National Lottery benefit from a total advertising ban,” the release states.

Emmanuel Mewissen, CEO of Belgian operator GAMING1, whose parent company Ardent Group is a BAGO member, has no qualms in querying why the National Lottery escapes these measures. “As a citizen, I have a lot of questions,” he says. “Because today, in Belgium, you have the government, which is a shareholder of the National Lottery. The National Lottery has a seat inside the regulator. But at the same time, it is the single company to avoid all these rules.

“For example, the National Lottery can continue to advertise. So, it’s surprising the government is wishing to push for more responsible gaming but does not apply for itself this very simple rule.”

Black clouds overhead

Belgium’s official regulator of the gambling industry, the Gaming Commission, has estimated that around 20% of Belgian customers are using illegal websites. However, a survey of 1,000 Belgian players carried out in June 2023 by research agency NEPA on behalf of BAGO, found one in five had played on an illegal website, yet this rose to 43% among the most vulnerable players. Meanwhile, 70% of respondents had heard of an illegal brand name.

Mewissen, who is also vice-president of BAGO, welcomes the rules since, when it comes to advertising, the sector cannot be expected to “self-regulate” but he doesn’t believe the law-making has been carried out in the right way. He elaborates: “There is no dialogue, unfortunately. Therefore, we are facing populist opinion about what must be done or not done. That means there is no space for the regulator to be heard or for explanations from the sector. And it’s not based on any data so it’s not based on science.”

Elsewhere, Massimo Menegalli, CEO of Golden Palace Casino Sports, says the proposals in the Van Hecke bill are “a result of good lobbying by the public gambling sector in Belgium, trying to destroy the private legal market”. He strongly believes the consequence will be a disaster for player protection. 

Protecting the youth  

As a strong supporter of raising the minimum age to 21, away from gambling Mewissen refers to the current problem of mobile and digital consumption among young people, particularly when it comes to video gaming. “Nobody talks about video gaming, but there’s a lot more income. This sector is a lot stronger and bigger than gambling. Nobody talks about the gambling machines and the casino mechanisms that are inside the video games. And it’s a youth problem,” he stresses.

GAMING1’s CEO would prefer to see a setup similar to the Dutch model, where a monthly net deposit limit of €150 (compared to €350 for those over 25 years old) will apply to young adults aged 18-24 later this year. “How can it be that some people believe banning young people from our products will be enough to avoid them going into a casino and betting? It will not happen.”

Menegalli of Golden Palace Casino Sports reiterates that banning advertising will just further fuel the black market, given how social media is already flooded with ads from illegal sites. “The best example is Stake.com with F1 and football. Young people don’t see the difference. They believe it’s totally legal because even though Stake.com is classed as a black site by the Gaming Commission, they can play on Stake without using a VPN,” he comments.

A Gaming Commission study in June 2023 of 1,000 Belgians aged 18 to 30 found 44% knew about offshore operators and can differentiate them from licensed operators. The study also showed that 90% of respondents who visited a gambling website in the past three years did so through a legal operator, 33% used an illegal option and 7% played exclusively on unregulated sites.

Time to separate

Looking at the distribution of online GGR across verticals, a 2022 Gaming Commission report found casino websites ranked top with a 47.3% share of total GGR, followed by online slots (26.4%) and online betting (26.3%).

On customers needing to open individual accounts for each vertical played with the same operator, BAGO describes this as “a direct sabotage of an efficient prevention policy”. The industry mouthpiece highlights how the measure will make it impossible for operators and the government to keep track of problem gambling behaviour and take preventative action accordingly. For example, if a player has to manage up to three separate accounts with the same operator, it not only makes it trickier for the player to keep an overview but it also causes problems for operators because they use a variety of systems such as data analysis and AI to detect risky behaviour.

In turn, this jeopardises the self-imposed duty of care brought in by BAGO’s six member operators from 14 November 2023 as data from the same player will be split up. The agreement stipulates that each operator is committed to develop a prevention policy based on four pillars: a detection system based on algorithms, AI and scientifically based criteria to identify potentially risky behaviour, actions and/or recommendations to protect the player, education and training for staff, and sharing the prevention policy with the Gaming Commission.

Menegalli is bewildered by the requirement for separate accounts, pointing out it will render the operator’s detection systems useless for monitoring player behaviour patterns. For example, if a customer who usually deposits €50-€100 starts depositing more than their usual amount. He says: “We always try to inform the government not to make it so that the player will have 10-15 different accounts as they will lose control. This is crazy, but they don’t listen.”

The Belgian operator’s IT and developer departments have highlighted that this will also require a brand new platform as the existing sites all operate on single wallets. Nevertheless, Menegalli praises the Gaming Commission for considering the technical challenges, noting the regulator has already started conducting meetings around this. He remarks: “The Gaming Commission understands the difficulty, they understand the situation, but they don’t vote. They just give advice, and the politicians don’t listen. So, this is quite a problem.”

From a technical and infrastructure perspective, Ivan Kurochkin, founder and partner at consulting firm 4H Agency, accepts this will be hard to implement. “Having separate accounts for different types of games should be considered very carefully,” he urges. “The devil is in the detail, and it can actually affect the user journey of the player and make the game burdensome to enjoy and ruin the UX/UI experience.”

Kurochkin also highlights the impact it could have on the cross-sell capabilities between casino and sports betting. He explains: “Separate accounts would be burdensome for the operators to implement, first of all, and also they will lose the conversion of players from one product to another where the platform cannot be adjusted in this way.”

Digging deeper

The other potential problem is around the mandatory deposit limit in Belgium, which currently stands at €200 per week, per account. However, under certain conditions a player can opt out of this. Nevertheless, Mewissen points to the fact that under the new measures, a player could open three separate accounts, for example, enabling them to be able to deposit up to €600 per week instead. “So again, it will not help to protect the people,” he asserts.

The CEO of Golden Palace Casino Sports says that the new rules will effectively cancel most of the player protection in place. He argues that people will run to illegal operators with no protection, no tax for the country and no work for Belgians. “They will go the opposite way they wanted to. For the moment, channelisation in Belgium is more than 75% and I’m sure that will decrease. Looking at studies carried out by other countries, it is expected to reduce immediately to 50%,” Menegalli shares.

This can be seen in Germany where a survey by University of Leipzig economist Gunther Schnabl found only 50.7% of gambling was channelled to legal offerings as of March 2023.

With the Gaming Commission in Belgium funded by the private gambling sector rather than the government, Menegalli is disappointed the money isn’t being used to carry out studies or research into the market before such legislative changes are made. “This is a scandal because we plead with the government to carry out a study, but they don’t listen. They don’t care. They are not fighting for the player protection; they are fighting for the destruction of the private sector. This is the fact we have in Belgium. The response of the politician is that illegal gaming doesn’t exist. Wow!” he exclaims.

In an ideal world, Mewissen would like to see the law implemented together with the sector in a step-by-step process, under the umbrella of the government but with the gambling industry building RG solutions alongside the health and media sectors.

For Menegalli, he understands the need for limits on advertising, telling EGR that the operator agrees with more than 85% of the Van Hecke law. However, he maintains that the sector only needs a few rules to stay alive: a single wallet, regulated advertising, and the private and national sector being on a level playing field, with the same regulations applied to the legal and illegal firms. “This law is going to reduce the sector and kill it,” he forewarns.

Entry or exit?

For new operators looking to enter the country, Mewissen admits Belgium is now very difficult to penetrate due to the restrictive rules as well as it being a mature market. His hope for the future is that the new government will base their decisions on data while also opting for an independent regulator. “I hope this government will do these two things: exclude the National Lottery from the regulator, making it more independent, and develop politics based on science.”

Despite the incoming restrictive measures, Kurochkin is buoyant on the opportunities still available within the market. “While the changes in Belgian legislation will lead to a higher level of control over the gambling market, I cheer this amendment as the government continues its efforts to add more measures of responsible gambling, which is really very crucial.”

So, where next for gambling in Belgium? Mewissen would like to see “a government that is not doing gambling bashing”. He concludes: “I have the feeling today that the politicians and government want to shoot on gambling to look like at least we did something. It’s exactly the same as they did with alcohol in the 1930s in the US. Stopping legal operators from being there created a huge gap with undesirable people coming in. I don’t want to see that for my country.”

EGR reached out to the Gaming Commission and Ministry of Justice in Belgium for a response on the statements made here but received no reply at the time of going to press. Nor were we able to confirm if there was a data-driven approach to the rule-making.