Pieter Paepe
Partner

Pieter Paepe is a founding partner at EDSON and a member of the Brussels Bar, specialising in Belgian and EU business law, competition law, and regulatory affairs. He has built a strong reputation advising gaming operators on Belgian gaming law, state aid issues, and competition compliance. Pieter regularly represents clients in litigation before the Belgian courts, the Belgian Competition Authority, and the European Commission. He has also appeared before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in several landmark cases, including on behalf of the Belgian government. His work has contributed to precedent-setting rulings that have shaped the European legal landscape in the gaming and digital services sectors. Known for his strategic insights and litigation experience, Pieter supports both national and international clients in navigating complex legal frameworks. He is a trusted advisor in the gaming industry, helping operators manage risk and regulatory challenges across international jurisdictions.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN BELGIUM
– ADVERTISING AND ONLINE GAMES OF CHANCE IN THE SPOTLIGHT?

Introduction

Games of chance offered in physical venues have been regulated in Belgium since 1999, while the regulation of online games of chance began in 2011. Belgian gambling policy is based on a strict channelling approach. Rather than banning the commercial offering of games of chance, the Belgian legislature has opted to provide residents with access to a limited, safe, and strictly regulated offer of such games – both offline and online. This is achieved through a licensing system that permits only licensed operators to offer games of chance to players in Belgium.

Fragmentary Regulation of Online Games of Chance

Although online games of chance have become regulated in Belgium in 2011, they remain largely unregulated in practice. In an opinion published in March 2022, the Belgian Gaming Commission acknowledged that the regulatory framework for online games of chance is still highly fragmented, even a decade after their formal regulation.

Since 2011, the Belgian Gaming Act – the country’s primary piece of gambling legislation (the Federal Act of 7 May 1999 on games of chance, wagers, and player protection) – has empowered the government to establish detailed rules for online games of chance. This includes setting conditions for how these games may be offered, defining game rules, regulating payment methods, and determining limits on stakes, losses, and winnings per participation. However, more than a decade after receiving this authority, the government has only made limited use of it. As a result, the regulatory framework for online games of chance remains fragmented and incomplete.

This stands in stark contrast to the regulation of land-based games of chance, which are governed in much greater detail. A Royal Decree specifies the games that may be offered in casinos (under an “A licence”) and gaming arcades (under a “B licence”). Additional Royal Decrees lay out comprehensive operational rules for these games. The Belgian Gaming Commission has also issued detailed “protocols” outlining the technical and operational specifications for gaming machines used in casinos and arcades. Betting shops are similarly subject to strict regulation – they are allowed a maximum of two gaming machines, and legislation limits the average hourly loss to no more than EUR 12.50.

In March 2022, the Belgian Gaming Commission issued a “preliminary opinion” containing recommendations for the government to consider when regulating online games of chance. A key feature of Belgian gambling law is the principle of regulatory parallelism between land-based and online gambling. Under the Gaming Act, only operators already licensed to offer games of chance or bets in the physical world (holding a principal A, B, or F1 licence) are eligible to obtain a corresponding online licence (A+, B+, or F1+). Additionally, online licence holders are, in principle, restricted to offering the same types of games that they are authorised to offer offline. However, the March 2022 opinion highlights a critical point: the Gaming Commission cautions against simply applying existing offline regulations to the online environment. It argues that many of these rules are outdated or ill-suited for the specific characteristics and challenges of online gambling.

The Belgian Gaming Commission put forward several policy proposals in its March 2022 opinion aimed at improving the regulation of online games of chance. These include:

  • Enhancing player registration and identification, including linking accounts to reliable financial data;
  • Mandating personalised and compulsory playing limits;
  • Introducing a duty of care for licence holders;
  • Strengthening complaint-handling procedures;
  • Imposing stricter rules on the payment of winnings and the refunding of player account balances;
  • Improving player awareness by introducing quality labels;
  • Adding specific protections for younger players, particularly those aged 18 (now raised to 21) to 25, such as banning bonuses and imposing stricter playing limits; and
  • Standardising the minimum age requirement across all categories of online games of chance.

General amendments to the Gaming Act

In 2024, the Belgian legislator introduced a series of targeted amendments to the Gaming Act. These changes include:

  • A complete ban on online bonuses and incentives: It is now explicitly prohibited to offer any form of gift, bonus, free participation, game credits, or similar advantages intended to influence player behaviour or attract or retain users.
  • Prohibition on joint offerings under a single domain: Online gambling operators are no longer allowed to offer different types of games of chance – such as betting, online casino games, and online slots – under the same domain name or URL. Players must now create separate accounts for each type of licence (e.g., one for betting, another for online dice games, etc.), and fund transfers between these accounts are no longer allowed. For example, funds in a player’s online betting account cannot be moved to their online casino account.
  • Uniform age restriction raised to 21: The minimum age to participate in any form of game of chance, including betting and online betting, has been increased to 21 years old. Previously, only (online) casino and arcade games had this higher age threshold, while betting was permitted from age 18.
  • General ban on advertising for games of chance and bets, unless specifically permitted by Royal Decree. This represents a significant shift in the approach to gambling promotion.

These amendments mark a stricter regulatory stance, particularly in the online space, and reflect several of the Belgian Gaming Commission’s earlier recommendations. However, some operators have challenged the constitutionality of these reforms, and proceedings are currently pending before the Belgian Constitutional Court, with a ruling expected by late 2025 or early 2026.

Strict Regulation for Advertising Games of Chance

The Belgian government has recently imposed strict advertising restrictions on licensed games of chance, introduced initially through a Royal Decree on 27 February 2023 and later incorporated into the Gaming Act in 2024. These rules apply uniformly to both land-based and online gambling activities.

Under the revised Gaming Act, advertising games of chance is generally prohibited, unless specifically authorised by Royal Decree. The 2023 Royal Decree outlines limited exceptions to this general ban, identifying situations in which advertising is still permitted. It also sets out a range of general restrictions applicable to all authorised gambling advertising. For example, personalised advertising is banned, and all permitted advertisements must clearly state the minimum legal age for participation and include a gambling prevention message.

Incidental advertising related to the coverage of sports competitions and events is allowed. Sports sponsorship is permitted for non-professional sports associations and, until 1 January 2028, for professional sports associations as well. However, the sponsorship can only involve displaying the brand name and/ or logo in specific ways: on the sports clothing of players and teams, excluding underage players, and at the location where the sport is practiced, but this was allowed only until 1 January 2025.

Licensed operators may also broadcast sports sponsorship messages featuring their brand name and/or logo during international, European, and Belgian sports competitions. However, starting from 1 January 2025, this form of sponsorship will no longer be permitted in connection with Belgian sports competitions, while it may continue for international and European events. The broadcast of these sponsorship messages must adhere to certain rules, including that each message cannot exceed five seconds in length, no more than two messages can be broadcast per hour, and the messages must air within the 15-minute window before and after the live coverage of the sporting event, specifically from the actual start to the actual end of the event.

For online licence holders, advertising is restricted to their own websites and official social media accounts. The advertising must comply with several conditions: no interaction is allowed in connection with the advertising, no third-party compensation can be given for promoting the ads, and any advertising with moving images must not exceed five seconds in duration.

De-risking of Licensed Gaming Operators by Belgian Banks

To play their role as an instrument in Belgium’s channelling policy, licenced gaming operators need access to essential banking services. In fact, Belgian law requires all companies to have a bank account with a credit institution. The reality, however, is that it is increasingly cumbersome – not to say impossible – for licenced gaming operators to have a bank account with a Belgian bank to obtain financing for new investments, to obtain guarantee letters, etc. Belgian banks increasingly shut the door to licenced gaming operators – a practice referred to as “de-risking”.

Some banks justify this practice as the logical consequence of legitimate risk management under applicable anti-money laundering (“AML”) legislation. In a noteworthy opinion of 5 January 2022 on de-risking, the European Banking Authority (“EBA”) recalls that the de-risking of entire categories of customers – without due consideration of individual customers’ risk profiles – can be unwarranted and a sign of ineffective risk management in the fight against money laundering and financing of terrorism. The National Bank of Belgium (“NBB”) has followed suit. On 1 February 2022, the NBB published a circular detailing the “prudential expectations in relation to de-risking”. The NBB clearly states that it is neither appropriate nor consistent with legal and regulatory AML requirements for a financial institution’s customer acceptance policy to exclude by rule all business relationships with potential or existing clients on the basis of general criteria, such as the fact that these clients belong to a “particular industry”. Note that there are several procedures pending before Belgian courts where it is argued that banks infringe AML legislation, given that they exclude to the greatest extent all companies active in the gambling industry.

But there is more. Another trend is that banks also rely on environmental, social, and governance considerations (also known as “ESG”) to terminate agreements with licenced gaming operators or to refuse to deal with them. One major Belgian bank, for instance, has set a policy whereby all companies deriving a certain percentage of their total revenues from ownership or operation of gambling-related activities are “excluded” from all investment products, loans and other non-investment related activities. If all banks adopt the same or similar policies, access to (essential) banking services will become virtually impossible for licenced gaming operators and the question arises whether they can still play their instrumental role – as desired by the legislator – in Belgium’s channelling policy.

Stricter Enforcement

Since the regulation of online games of chance in 2011, the Belgian Gaming Commission has blacklisted websites offering games of chance and bets without the required licence. Most Belgian Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) block access to the blacklisted websites. In March of 2022, the Gaming Commission agreed on a co-operation with the Belgian telecommunications regulator, which will provide its expertise and technical assistance and raise awareness among ISPs through different information campaigns.

As of May 2025, 519 websites are blacklisted. In the past, these companies were generally not fined; however, this has changed recently. The Gaming Commission is increasingly initiating sanction proceedings against these illegal operators and imposing fines. The fines can amount to several hundred thousand euros. Some companies are challenging the lawfulness of these fines before the Belgian courts.

While the outcome of these proceedings is pending, the Belgian legislator adopted, in May 2024, a legal basis for this blacklisting mechanism. Under the new provision, the Gaming Commission is explicitly required to maintain a list of URLs for websites offering unlicenced games of chance in Belgium. This updated list is published in the Belgian Official Gazette, and the listed websites are reported to ISPs to ensure their access is blocked “as quickly as possible”.