Belgium: all our coverage

The Senate has passed a bill that would make it an offence for anyone under 25 to gamble "by any method, electronic or otherwise", in a country that is about to license online gambling for the first time. The House still has to agree the Senate's amendments, and no start date has been set.

The Dutch regulator says 711 required customers paying by methods other than an ordinary bank account to stake deposited money at least once before cashing it out, and called the practice highly undesirable. There is no fine, and no figure for how many players were affected; it is the third public round of this kind since the KSA warned operators in March 2024.

Bulgaria notified the European Commission of its draft Gambling Act amendments on 2 October, closing the procedural gap that left Lithuania's promotion ban unenforceable. The text, still out to consultation and not yet before parliament, would end affiliate licences in January and charge online operators at least €100,000 a month.

The Ministry of Finance has listed kalshi.com as a site offering prohibited gambling, and internet providers must block it by 15 October. The order covers the website only, but it puts the largest US prediction market on the same footing in Czechia as an unlicensed online casino.

The Liège group has bought 100% of the company behind Carousel.be, its partner since 2012, taking over a B+ online licence and the gaming hall in Harelbeke that Belgian law requires behind it. The price is undisclosed, and the sellers are keeping the 711 brand that grew out of Carousel.

Prime Minister Rumen Radev said on Wednesday that draft amendments to the Gambling Act would leave sports sponsorship as the only permitted form of gambling advertising, raise the levy on online gambling substantially and connect every gaming machine to the tax authority in real time. The texts go to public consultation first.

The Gaming Commission's annual report shows a market growing on the players it already has and struggling to recruit new ones since the age limit rose to 21. Self-exclusions are up, land-based visits are down a quarter, and the operators' association says 28% of 18 to 30-year-olds have already gambled on an illegal site.

A roundtable on the International Day of Democracy concluded that protecting the "European lottery model" is a matter of civil society, not sectoral interest. The figure is from March; the framing is new, and it is aimed at the institutions that decide what the model is allowed to be.

From 14 September every gambling advertiser must show a clean compliance record, manager accounts with repeated revocations are barred, and free subdomains and unrelated domains are ineligible. Croatia is cut off entirely from 7 October.

A new paper by the former New South Wales regulator Paul Newson argues that Australia's bans on online casino and in-play betting are handing the market to offshore operators, and that the country's illicit tobacco trade shows how quickly practical control is lost. It was prepared for Entain Australia and New Zealand, and it lands as New Zealand prepares to award its first 15 online casino licences.

The City of Brussels gave its 15-year casino concession to Napoleon Games by 91.02 points to 87.74. The administrative court has now suspended that decision, and one of its grounds is a European filing the city never made.

The European Gaming and Betting Association changes leadership on 1 September, with Maarten Haijer stepping down after 13 years as Secretary General. His successor has named the illegal market as the priority.

Parliament cleared the package on 19 August. Wagering ads disappear from live sport, from stadiums and from players' shirts, athletes and influencers can no longer promote betting, and a single national register will let Australians switch the advertising off everywhere at once. It commences on 1 January 2027.

A post-tournament review from B2B supplier DATA.BET offers one of the first detailed reads on how the first 48-team World Cup was actually bet: France drew the most interest, in-play held a steady share, and the knockout rounds outweighed a much larger group stage.

A cross-party group of UK lawmakers says current gambling advertising rules have failed children and vulnerable people. With the industry spending up to £2 billion a year on promotion, they want sweeping restrictions and they want them now.

London, UK - 29th September 2025 - Colombia's regulated online gambling industry has called on the national gaming authority, Coljuegos, to block the US-based

Romania’s government, under Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, has enacted a sweeping fiscal package that includes a controversial increase in gambling taxes,

Social media platform X and Polymarket, described as the world’s largest prediction market, have announced an official partnership to integrate their data and

The Belgian Association of Gaming Operators (BAGO) has once again voiced significant concerns regarding the proliferation of unlicensed gambling activities