Belgium has been closing some dubious doors in its gaming industry. In September, regulators classified and banned loot boxes as gambling. This month, Belgium confirmed it will enact rigorous new limits on gambling advertising.
The new limits include an outright ban on online casino gambling services from advertising themselves within Belgium. There is a limited exception carved out for advertising which is itself hosted only online, on government-approved websites.
Sports betting may only be advertised on television post watershed. Furthermore, gambling ads have been banned during live sports broadcasts on television, even evening matches. Celebrities and athletes will be legally barred from representing gambling companies.
There are restrictions related to content as well. Any advertisement promoting excessive gambling is forbidden. All ads must display prominent gambling addiction warnings. Belgium is also putting into place new restrictions as to which media may contain gambling ads, blocking channels with a high proportion of underage viewers.
This general tightening of restrictions relating to gambling advertising is accompanied by other shifts in Belgian law – where the sizes of bonuses and weekly deposits (per site) will see limits imposed. Credit card deposits are also to be banned.
The regulation of online gambling in Belgium has only taken place since 2011, so it is only to be expected that alterations will occur frequently as the law attempts to tackle gambling and gaming landscapes, which evolve and change rapidly. The direction of this regulation can also be seen within a trend across many parts of Europe in which we are seeing tighter regulation, restriction or even banning of gambling advertising, from Italy, to Spain, to the United Kingdom.
Finally, the Director of the Belgian Gaming Commission, Peter Naessens, is heading up a project being run by the European Committee for Standardization, to bring together new rules governing industry compliance and reporting standards across the European Union. The objectives of this standardization are to prevent match-fixing, control fraud, and improve customer diligence.
