The Belgium Gambling Commission (KSC) is demanding new powers to address what it believes are urgent regulatory challenges impacting the country’s betting industry.

The regulator made its case in its 2024 annual report, published this week, arguing for more resources and powers to improve its regulatory capabilities and independence.

Belgian gambling has experienced a transformational couple of years, with a 2023 Royal Decree leading to a wide ranging advertising ban implemented throughout 2024, while in September last year the legal gambling age was raised from 18 to 21.

The clampdowns on advertising included ban on sports sponsorship, which came into effect on 1 January 2025, while a ban on bonuses was implemented at the same time as the increased age limit last year. The Commission believes that it has been too short staffed and has not had an adequate enough budget to effectively implement and enforce compliance with these rules.

“Is it really too much to ask to simply give the Commission the powers and resources it deserves to become the strong and independent supervisor it should be?” said Magali Clavie, Chair of the KSC, in a foreword to its 2024 report.

“Asking the question may not be answering it, but this feeling has certainly been present for several years. Too much valuable time has already been lost. It would be a shame and detrimental to waste any more.”

Problems and solutions

Staffing was one of the KSC’s biggest concerns for 2024. The regulator has described 2024 as a ‘lost year’ for recruitment, partly blaming its dependence on the Federal Public Service (FOD) for this.

These staffing problems led to the KSC failing to implement its personnel plan for 2021-2025 and struggling to achieve its 2024 objectives. It has also complained that no extra personnel were made available despite the new regulations coming into effect last year, which required more effort and resources to enforce.

Therefore, the bulk of the extra resources the KSC is demanding from the government revolve around staffing. It is particularly keen to acquire more data analysts, and wants to see the way it is funded change to accommodate staffing requirements.

“Due to the severe staff shortage, it was also impossible to publish the financial data of the licence holders in this year’s annual report,” Clavie said.

“However, this data is essential for mapping the state of the gambling sector and objectively assessing the effects of the measures taken. The staff shortage generally creates a large gap between how we would like to perform all our tasks and how we actually do so.

“We are usually forced to limit ourselves to putting out a few fires here and there. This leads to a certain degree of frustration and misunderstanding, but patience is not limitless.”

In its ideal world, the KSC wants to be able to deduct payments it makes to the National Bank of Belgium (NBB). As an example of these costs, the KSC paid €453,877 to the NBB in 2024 in exchange for the bank conducting monthly credit checks on bettors who lifted online spending limits.

Regarding these checks, the KSC doesn’t just view them as a financial burden, but also one affecting its workload as the regulator functions as a “go-between” between the bank and operators. The regulator is calling for changes to this spending limit system, stating that it offers “very limited protection” to players in financial difficulty.

It argues that this burden could be alleviated by listing debtors on the Excluded Persons Information System (EPIS) and making players more responsible to prove that they are not a defaulter, such as providing proof from the central bank to operators.

The KSC finds itself regulating a reasonably-sized market in Belgium, with nine physical casinos and nine online casino operators, 30 betting licence holders alongside 22 online betting licences, as well as thousands of newsagents, gaming cafes, and hundreds of gaming arcades.

It is also one which regularly sees compliance breaches and consistent targeting by illegal offshore firms. The KSC issued €4.6m in administrative fines issued last year, of which only €27,525 was effectively collected according to the regulator.

This may be due to many of these fines being issued against unlicensed firms, which are highly unlikely to actually pay them. On top of fines issued, the KSC also placed 105 betting URLs on a black list for offering illegal products.

Belgium is fast becoming one of Western Europe’s strictest gambling markets as last year’s regulatory enhancements put new standards in place around advertising and other areas. It seems that operators are not the ones shouldering the burden from this.