Belgium’s Regulator Blacklisted 30 New Gaming Domains

A total of 30 new domains were added to the Belgian Gaming Commission’s (BGC) blacklist latest update last week, among which a brand operated by the licensed in Malta Winzon Group.

Protecting the Public from Illegal Gambling Operators

The BGC targeted casinodep.com, an online casino gaming website operated by Malta-licensed Winzon Group, as well as a whole host of Curaçao-licensed operators among which brands like vulkanvegas.com, 21grandcasino.com, 24kcasino.com, action24.com, and calvincasino.com.

Belize-licensed larome-re.com and Prisma Solution’s casinoastral.me were also added to the BGC’s blacklist in the regulator’s latest update, as the watchdog seeking to protect the public from online gaming operators which do not have the appropriate licenses to offer online gambling to Belgian residents.

Malta-licensed Winzon Group operates a total of 23 online websites, yet the BGC added to the blacklist only casinodep.com without specifying any details as to why the website was highlighted for illegal operation.

The BGC reminded operators behind the websites currently on the list that if they continue to operate in the country, they will face fines of up to €100,000 ($110,500). For players who gamble via unlicensed websites, the law provides for criminal charges and fines of up to €25,000 ($276,625), the BGC noted.

The addition of the website operated by Malta-licensed Winzon Group is the latest action against a Malta-regulated operator, following the enforcement action taken against Genesis Global in February.

The BGC dished a fine of €4.5 million ($4.98 million) for serious failings in anti-money laundering procedures to heap more trouble to the operator which had its license in the UK suspended and faced a £3.8 million ($5.01 million) sanction for social responsibility and money laundering failures the month before.

The new additions to BGC’s blacklist of illegal iGaming operators was the second update of the list made by the regulator this year, following the addition of 11 websites, among which several Intertops.eu domains, in January.

Newspaper Shops Taking Bets as Sideline Activity

Also last week, the BGC released an update to the list of requirements for newspaper shops that wish to continue taking bets as a sideline activity, according to the Royal Decree of February 17, 2022, which entered into force on March 5.

Newspaper shops willing to continue taking bets should have an agreement with an F1 license holder “without any exclusivity clause in favor of this F1 license holder.” Bets should only be accepted between 6am and 8pm and the total amount of annual bets cannot exceed €250,000 ($276,000).

Shops should also have an annual turnover of newspaper sales of at least €25,000 ($27,600), offering “at least 200 different titles of daily, weekly and monthly newspapers with the current issue date,” and those unable to meet the new requirements will have to voluntarily surrender their F2 license to avoid any sanctions.