The Belgian Gaming Commission has expanded its blacklist of unauthorised websites to be voluntarily blocked by internet service providers in the country.
InterCasino.com and Betsafe.com, the latter owned by Betsson, were the highest-profile new inclusions yesterday, alongside 1bet2bet.com and Casino-Belgie.com, taking the total number on the Belgian regulator’s hitlist to 78.
With full licences restricted to land-based betting and gaming entities in the country, only a handful of Europe’s major online operators have managed to enter the dot.be regulated market by forging partnerships with land-based casinos in the country.
These include PokerStars, bwin.party, Unibet and WMS-owned Jackpot Party. The blacklist includes main dot.com domains belonging to just about all of Europe’s leading online protagonists, such as Bet365, William Hill, Betfair, 888 and Betsson.
It however emerged during February’s court hearing into Bet-At-Home’s unsuccessful legal action aimed at getting its domains removed from the blacklist that less than half of Belgium’s ISPs had opted to block websites after being notified by the BGC.
Under the Belgian Royal Decree that came into force at the start of 2011, there are nine A+ licences on offer to casinos, 34 F1+ permits to sports betting operators and approximately 180 B+ licences to arcade operators.
Online operators offering betting and gaming to Belgian players without a BGC licence run the risk of fines of up to €100,000 for “facilitating”, “advertising” or “recruiting” for illegal games of chance in Belgium. Players themselves also face fines of up to €25,000 for playing on sites that haven’t been licensed by the Commission.
The EU Member State has so far resisted a string of legal challenges from online operators regarding the alleged non-compliance of its licensing regime with European and local law, including Betfair and Telebet in 2011 and bwin.party and Bet-At-Home in 2012. Bwin.party eventually settled its action by entering its BGC-approved partnership with the Partouche Group, launching sports betting, poker and casino at Bwin.be.
Article written by Stephen Carter
