Belgian's most recently passed gambling law, which went into effect on April 19, 2002, was set up "to rationalize the operation and direction of the National Lottery (NL)," and Article 4, ยง 1 of the law granted to the new "Nationale Loterij" (NL) the legal form of a private company with limited liability of public law and a registered capital of 62,000 euro (the legal minimum).
The plan is to introduce a new gambling bill in December 2006, and we heard in April 2006 that a draft law was being presented to the Minister of Justice. The Gaming Commission stated that the new regulation, after three years of debate, would allow for online gambling, and it was said that Belgium's nine brick-and-mortar casinos could be issued licenses to operate online casinos.
"The new Belgian legislation," states Thibault Verbiest, senior partner at ULYS Law Firm in Belgium and France, "will target betting (events, horseracing and sports) and online gambling. This new legislation will be notified to the EU Commission.
"Basically, the new legislation would make it possible for an operator that has one land-based licensed agency to extend this license to cover online betting as well. The first draft required an operator to have at least 50 land-based agencies to be eligible for an online license; as for online casino games, the draft only required (surprisingly) an agreement between the applicant and the Gaming Board. The applicant could be any EU company, even without physical presence in Belgium."
According to a study by the Gaming Commission, over 100,000 Belgians are regularly betting online, even though it is considered illegal in Belgium.