Gaming1 Buys Carousel's Parent Pac-Man NV, Adding a Scarce Belgian Online Licence

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.

• Gaming1 announced on 23 September that it had acquired 100% of the shares in Pac-Man NV, the company behind the Belgian online casino Carousel.be, in a transaction that took place on 22 September, according to CasinoNieuws.nl
• The deal brings Gaming1 Pac-Man's B+ online licence, the Carousel brand and the Carousel gaming hall in Harelbeke; no financial terms were disclosed
• Pac-Man NV belonged to the De Backer family, which keeps the 711 brand that grew out of Carousel
• Online licences in Belgium are available only to holders of a land-based licence, gaming-hall licences are capped at 180 and the Kansspelcommissie is not currently accepting applications for new ones
• The deal comes as Belgium's online market grows on existing players while first-time registrations fell 43% in 2025

A Long-Standing Partner Becomes a Subsidiary

Gaming1, the Liège-based gaming business that is the entertainment arm of Ardent Group, said on 23 September that it had bought all of the shares in Pac-Man NV, the operating company behind Carousel.be. The acquisition includes the company's licence, its digital assets and the Carousel gaming hall in Harelbeke, in West Flanders. Gaming1 said Pac-Man's activities are being integrated with immediate effect and that the transaction does not involve the transfer of any employees. The price was not disclosed.

The two businesses were not strangers. Gaming1 and Carousel Group have worked together since 2012, according to SBC News, and the transaction turns a partner into a wholly owned subsidiary. "We believe this acquisition will further strengthen our digital presence in Belgium and enhance the fun and engaging entertainment experience we offer our players," said Sylvain Boniver, Gaming1's co-founder and chief operating officer. "It will also support our ambition to provide a safe, responsible and distinctive offering in the regulated Belgian market."

Pac-Man is not a young company. The Belgian company register (KBO) records it as a public limited company trading since October 1996 in lotteries and games of chance, with share capital of €61,500. Its registered office moved to Harelbeke with effect from 22 September 2026, the day the deal took place, according to the register, which on Monday still listed members of the De Backer family as directors.

The Sellers Keep the Brand That Grew Out of Carousel

The sellers are the De Backer family, who own the online casino group 711, according to CasinoNieuws.nl, which first reported the deal from the Dutch side. Pac-Man operated Carousel.be under a Belgian B+ licence. Tom De Backer, chief executive of 711, told the Dutch trade site that Carousel had always been a purely Belgian brand and that it was the right moment for both sides, and that while 711 had originally grown out of Carousel, the 711 brand and all 711 websites remain with the family. He confirmed his role on LinkedIn, congratulating Gaming1, the site reported.

711 has operated in the Netherlands through 711.nl since April 2022 and has launched 711.be and 711sports.be in Belgium under a different licence holder, Max Lobo & CO NV, according to CasinoNieuws.nl. Its 711 Malta Limited received a B2C licence from the Malta Gaming Authority in July 2026.

For Gaming1, the Belgian operator already runs casino777.be and bet777.be and launched an online-only brand, Casino1, in 2025. It has used acquisitions of former partners before: in December 2025 it bought the remaining 50% of Circus.nl from the Dutch casino operator Gran Casino, NEXT.io reports. The private equity firm CVC Capital Partners became a shareholder in Gaming1 alongside its founders, Emmanuel Mewissen, Sylvain Boniver and Nicolas Léonard, and owns 55% of the business, according to NEXT.io.

Licences Stay With the Company, So the Company Is What Changes Hands

The structure of the deal follows from the structure of Belgian gambling law. Under the Gaming Act, only operators holding a land-based A, B or F1 licence can obtain the supplementary "plus" licence to offer the same games online, and the Gaming Commission requires a separate B+ licence, renewed alongside the B licence, to offer gaming-hall games on the internet. The commission caps B licences for gaming halls at 180 and says there is currently no possibility to apply for one; a licence becomes available only if one falls vacant and is published. That is why Harelbeke matters: without the hall, there is no online licence.

Approval is the open question. Belgian law requires licence holders to notify the Gaming Commission of any change in their shareholding, and the commission's practice extends that to anyone who directly or indirectly controls the licensee, according to a Legal 500 guide by the lawyer Pieter Paepe. Neither Gaming1 nor the sellers has said whether the commission has been notified or has reviewed the change of control, and we found nothing published by the commission on the transaction.

In Belgium, a Licence Is Bought, Not Applied For

The most consequential fact in this deal is not in the announcement. With gaming-hall licences capped at 180, no application window open and every online licence tied to a physical venue, the only practical way for an established operator to add another online gaming-hall licence is to buy a company that already holds one. That turns small, family-owned licence holders into acquisition targets and makes a numerus clausus regime, designed to limit supply, a market in which supply changes hands. It also explains why the deal can be done without transferring staff: what Gaming1 needed was the legal entity, its licence and its hall, not an operation. Pac-Man's value lies mainly in a permission the state is not currently issuing.

Consolidation Is the Rational Response to a Market That Has Stopped Recruiting

Belgium's online market grew 5.41% to €964.46 million of gross gaming revenue in 2025, but the number of people registering to play online for the first time fell 43.1% after the minimum age rose to 21, according to the Gaming Commission's annual report. Gambling advertising has been largely banned since 2023. In a market where operators can barely advertise and new players are scarce, growth comes from taking existing customers, and buying a brand with an established player base is cheaper and faster than trying to win those players one at a time. The Carousel deal fits that pattern, as does Gaming1's buyout of Circus.nl. The risk for the regulator is that concentration reduces the number of independent licensees without adding anything to channelisation, at a time when the licensed operators' association says 28% of young adults have already played on an illegal site.

The Deal Separates Two Strategies That Used to Share a Company

The sellers' side is as telling as the buyer's. The De Backer family built 711 out of Carousel, took it to the Netherlands after the market opened in 2021, and now holds a Maltese licence for an international site. Carousel, a Belgian-only brand tied to a Belgian licence and a hall in West Flanders, no longer fitted that plan, while for Gaming1 it is precisely the kind of domestic asset its omnichannel model is built around. That is a clean division, and it is the undisclosed price that would tell the market what a Belgian B+ licence with a player base is now worth.

Gaming1 has added a licence to its home market that it could not have obtained any other way. Whether the Gaming Commission sees the deal as routine or as a sign that its capped market is consolidating into fewer hands is the question to watch.