New law about online gambling in Belgium

[retlaw]

I today read in the newspaper that there will be soon a new law for online gambling in Belgium.
As far as I understand, only people who have a gambling license in the "real world" will be able to offer online gambling.
Anyone knows more about it?

[jetset]

Last I heard was around the middle of last year, when there were moves afoot to legalise online gambling in Belgium, hopefully by 2009....so your information could well be correct although I have not personally seen anything concrete on this so far.

There were unconfirmed reports that draft regulations had been prepared with the national lottery first to go online.

There was talk of stringent conditions that may even restrict licenses to reputable land casino operators in the EU, if I recall correctly.

See also: http://www.casinomeister.com/news/ju...T-GAMBLING.php

Did the report you read mention whether a legislative proposal had been presented to the Belgian parliament?

[retlaw]

Did the report you read mention whether a legislative proposal had been presented to the Belgian parliament?

Yes, there is a new law which will normally be approved by the Belgian parliament before summer.
Illegal casino's will be banned from the internet by our providers.
Seems they have a list of 25 illegal casino's who are active in Belgium, but they did not give the names yet.

[vinylweatherman]

Yes, there is a new law which will normally be approved by the Belgian parliament before summer.
Illegal casino's will be banned from the internet by our providers.
Seems they have a list of 25 illegal casino's who are active in Belgium, but they did not give the names yet.

Oh Dear! Hardly player protection. The Rogue pit has more casinos in it than this

Certainly, it's a start. The current problem with the UK system is that rogue casinos are still able to attract UK players by "sneaky" means, such as spam, snail mail from abroad, and even connivance with seemingly reputable websites. A specific blocking of these errant casinos really would dent their bottom line. Take Virtual group. Probably the biggest rogues, but they can STILL milk the naive and uneducated players. This would not be possible if access to their site was blocked, prefferably with a warning as to why.

There is a downside, and this is CENSORSHIP. It is a step down a slippery slope, and once the precedent is set, who "draws the line" as to how far it can go. The USA would LOVE to have ISP's block ALL internet casinos, yet the EU is taking legal action at the WTO that this would breach trade agreements. The Belgian government could well find they are the subject of similar action from casinos they have decided to ban.

Belgian players who are determined to play at banned casinos will still be able to do so, as like many US players, they will find a way. "illegal casinos" could do the "BoDog dance" and constantly switch domains, making it a logistical nightmare to enforce such a ban.

[jetset]

Looks as if Sweden is contemplating a similar ISP blocking scheme - but the consultative process is generating a lot of flak against it:

SWEDISH ONLINE GAMBLING BLOCKS UNDER DISCUSSION

Should the Swedish government institute ISP blocks on Internet gambling websites?


It didn't work in Italy, and it is creating major waves of protest in Australia at present - the prospect of governments forcing Internet Service Providers to impose blocks censoring online gambling websites.

Sweden is the latest country to consider the censorship option, reports The Stockholm News this weekend. The newspaper reveals that a government report suggesting the blocks is at present undergoing a public consultative process...and picking up plenty of flak as it does so.

With Wednesday April 1st as the deadline, the criticism is likely to escalate, the newspaper reports. By then, regional authorities, local governments, relevant organisations and private interests will have all expressed views on how Internet gambling should be regulated going forward in a country already notorious for its state-sponsored gambling monopolistic system.

The main objections to the proposal are that it constitutes blatant censorship and is offensive to the democratic principle of freedom of speech.

The proposal is one of many in the government report on the future of Swedish gambling, and suggests that a Swedish government agency should have sole responsibility to decide what is and is not acceptable in terms of Internet content, and issue orders for ISPs to block specific websites.

It is not at this stage known if this alternative is to be operated under the cloak of secrecy as has been the recent case in Australia and its Australian Media and Communications Authority trials.

Major ISPs such as Bahnhof have already condemned the proposal as rank censorship, and Jon Karlung of the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper has editorially posed the question: "Is it really a good idea for the Swedish state to decide to what Internet destinations its citizens may have access?"

In practice, several Swedish ISPs voluntarily block internet sites that depict child pornography, but there is no state filtering, and Karlung believes this is an important issue. Forcing ISPs to block Internet content would be the first state censorship in history, he points out.

Government agencies are also critical of the proposal. The Swedish Post and Telecommunications Agency, the High Courts and the Agency for Administrative development have issues concerning the blocking of Internet access. Attention is drawn in recent responses to the fact that it is not presently illegal to visit the Internet sites of foreign gambling companies, therefore why should legal accessibility be prevented by the government?

The High Courts in the counties of Skåne and Blekinge have characterised the proposal as “disproportional” and point to the risk that one kind of state filtering of Internet access can lead to an unwelcome expansion of state censorship authority to other industries or interests on the Web.

“What really must be taken into account is that there are no similar regulations in any other area of Swedish law”, the courts write in their response to the government report.

In similar vein, the Agency for Administrative Development opined that the proposal will mean “a ban for Swedish citizens to use parts of the Internet” and recommended wider and deeper discussion on the possible consequences of the proposal.

The Ministry of Finance, which commissioned the report, has declined to make any comments until the consultative phase has been completed, but Finance Minister Anders Borg is on prior record as saying that blocking Internet access may be going "...a little bit too far” and to have questioned the proportionality of the concept.

On the other side of the discussion, Social Democratic spokesperson Lars Wegendal has said that his party supports the idea of a state filter on foreign online gambling sites.

[Rhyzz]

I really do have no idea how governments can get away with even proposing stuff like this. Who the hell are the government to say what the public can and cannot spend their money on? If they have a beef with the businesses then do something about that but don't stop people spending money on a hobby.

The US have gotten away with it for a few years now but how much longer can they expect to have the safe port act in place? I'll give it 12 months before Obama, a seemingly decent president (for once) sees that stopping people enjoying their money isn't the answer, but a tax from a multi trillion dollar, global business is. Think of how many jobs would be created and the billions paid in tax would benefit the economy...

[slotheadlizard]

I really do have no idea how governments can get away with even proposing stuff like this. Who the hell are the government to say what the public can and cannot spend their money on? If they have a beef with the businesses then do something about that but don't stop people spending money on a hobby.

The US have gotten away with it for a few years now but how much longer can they expect to have the safe port act in place? I'll give it 12 months before Obama, a seemingly decent president (for once) sees that stopping people enjoying their money isn't the answer, but a tax from a multi trillion dollar, global business is. Think of how many jobs would be created and the billions paid in tax would benefit the economy...

I agree with you. Hate to see any government dictate how one's money is or is not spent.

[jetset]

Unfortunately, governments increasingly seem to feel that they have the right to interfere in the private lives of their citizens....and throw taxpayers' cash around with abandon in the process.

With big business financing political careers and lobbying for self-interested and often protectionist laws, the man in the street is all too frequently sidelined instead of being the main focus of the state in terms of freedom and security.

Every now and then the politicians push things too far and the public backlash is sufficiently harsh and pervasive to make them back off.

Hopefully that is what may be happening in Australia at present, but it's early days still so who knows how that will pan out.

[spiderlegz]

If I look at this as an economist I understand why governments would like to ban online gambling. If B&M casinos already fails the cost-benefit ratio by big numbers the online casinos fares much worse.
Worth reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cost
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax

But people have always gambled and always will and prohibition doesnt work. So what to do? Taxation (regulation) wouldnt work in itself as there would be "black markets" (unregulated) where the promos and payouts would be better.

There could be one way. If lets say casino X pays taxes to country Y on the profits generated by players from that country then the players would get their winnings taxfree. And would have to pay tax on winnings from unregulated casinos. But how could you track the winnings? And how high would the Pigouvian tax be? And currently in EU all winnings from EEA sites are taxfree so it would fail on that point.

I dont see that there will ever be any proper regulation. There are too many problems to tackle. How high would the tax be (also the Pigouvian)? How to get all countries to implement the same standards? How to deal with the black market problem (by far the biggest problem)?

[retlaw]

Today I heared that the new law about online gambling in Belgium is effective since yesterday( 01.01.2011).
Anyone knows what will be the impact for Belgian players?