The Belgium Gaming Commission’s blacklist of online gambling operators continues to grow, although at this point it’s hardly surprising anymore considering that more and more companies are getting the banned treatment from the BGC seemingly every month.
The latest luminaries Belgium’s banking institutions and ISPs don’t want any part of include 1bet2bet.com, Casino-Belgie.com, Betsafe.com and Intercasino.com. With the addition of these four companies, the list of operators in Belgium getting shunned has now hit 78. It’s quite a list, really, especially if you’re not as big as some of the company you now keep. Just last month, five more companies were also blacklisted, including BetVictor.com, Casinograndluxe.com, Cityclubcasino.com, Monacasino.com and Royalcasino.com. All the companies share in their fate some of the biggest online gambling operators in the world, including bet365, William Hill, Betfair, 888 and Betsson, all of which now have something in common: incurring the wrath of the almighty BGC and getting sent to the blacklist pile.
The growing number of companies getting blacklisted by the BGC is indicative of the latter’s iron-grip on industry regulations. In the country, online gambling licenses are restricted to existing land-based operators and their partners. It’s a monopoly system that suns competition, possibly even bordering on discriminatory should somebody elect to throw that word around.
But even with the completely out-dated regulations, companies aren’t exactly conniving to find any loopholes on the issue. For one, being convicted of unlicensed online gambling in Belgium could cost a company 100,000 euros in fines per day with marketers and even players liable to also be fined to the tune of 25,000 euros.
