Legislation

Belgium – Belgium’s Constitutional Court rules sports betting and casino must be seperate

By Phil - 21 September 2021

Belgium’s Constitutional Court will abolish its 1999 Gambling Act, meaning casino games will not be allowed to be offered alongside sports betting products on the same website.

The case came to court following complaints from B licence operator Rocoluc, who claimed it was unfair for operators to offer the mix of betting products from the one domain.

“The requesting party justifies its interest in bringing proceedings by the fact that it is disadvantaged by unfair competition arising from the combined operation, via the same domain name, of games of chance and bets” the court said. “According to the requesting party, this cumulative exploitation allows licensees to benefit from increased visibility and to achieve economies of scale and significant revenue from gambling and advertising profits, whereas such cumulative exploitation is not possible in the real world.”

The Belgian gaming Commission had previously cancelled Casinos Austria International’s licence due to Betway, via its dot.be domain, offering both online casino games, under CAI’s A+ licence, and sports betting, via an F1+ licence.