By Arthur D · Published on 4 September 2026 | Updated on 8 September 2026
The Belgian Gaming Commission register currently lists fifty-eight active licences, nine of class A+ and forty-nine of class B+. That is the figure everyone repeats.
I read it row by row, cross-referencing three columns nobody cross-references: the licence holder, the physical venue it is attached to, and the site address. What I found changes how you read any comparison, including the comparison of Belgian online casinos I publish myself.
Fifty-eight licences, thirty-two brand families
The fifty-eight licences spread across only fifty-five sites, and those sites trace back to thirty-one brand families. Ten families hold thirty-seven licences, close to two thirds of the market. The other twenty-one brands hold one each. The register can also be read across time, not only across breadth: the term granted to each licence says whether it is new or taken over.
Put differently: when a comparison shows you fifteen sites as fifteen choices, it is in fact showing you far fewer separate entities.
The three signals that reveal a link
None of this is hidden. It all sits in public documents; you simply have to know what to look at.
- The licence holder. The company recorded in the register, with its legal form. Two brands can share the same holder.
- The anchor venue. A B+ licence is granted only as an add-on to an existing physical gaming venue. The register names that venue, and several sites can rest on the same one.
- The declared publisher. This one is not in the register but in the site’s terms and conditions. It is the most telling signal, and the only one that exposes a shared platform.
The first two can be checked on a single web page. The third requires opening the documents, which I do operator by operator in my audit entries.
Why the date shown in the register misleads
A fourth column is worth the detour, and it explains a mistake I see everywhere.
The register shows a decision date and a publication date. When publication follows the decision by a few days, it is a first grant. When it precedes it, sometimes by years, the decision shown is a renewal of a much older file.
Of the fifty-eight licences, forty-three show a gap of five days or less, and fourteen have a publication date earlier than the decision. The record exceeds five years.
A comparison that uses the register date to order operators from oldest to newest is therefore wrong fourteen times out of fifty-eight. The only reliable indicator of seniority remains the file number, issued in chronological order.
Why one brand runs two sites
This is the most widespread and least explained pattern. Six brands run a “casino” site and a “dice” site under two separate licences: Circus, Napoleon, Bwin, Ladbrokes, Starcasino and Golden Palace.
The reason is structural. An A+ licence is attached to a land-based casino and allows table games and live play. A B+ licence is attached to an automatic gaming venue and allows slots and dice games. Offering both catalogues therefore requires two licences, and in practice two sites.
Bwin illustrates it perfectly: licence A+571352 for bwincasino.be and licence B+16872 for bwindice.be were decided on the same day, 16 November 2023. Not a coincidence, but one commercial decision translated into two administrative files.
A player who finds napoleondice.be and then napoleoncasino.be believes they are seeing two operators. They are seeing one.
That split is not commercial but regulatory: the two classes do not permit the same range of games. What separates them comes down to one single thing, and it is not what people assume.
When one site carries two licences
The reverse also happens. Four sites appear twice in the register, under two different file numbers: circus-dice.be, napoleondice.be, peppermillcasino.be and goldenpalacedice.be.
At Golden Palace, both licences are held by the same company and rest on two separate venues, one in Waterloo and one in Peruwelz. At PepperMill, the two holders are two different companies, one in Maasmechelen and one in Genk, for a single web address.
Nothing irregular there either. But a player who checks a licence number in the footer and finds it in the register concludes they have verified everything. They have seen one of the two rows.
And when one licence carries two brands
This is the most striking case in the register, and it fits in a single cell. Licence A+20635, attached to the Casino de Namur, covers two addresses: circus-casino.be and pokerstars.be.
Two brands nobody would spontaneously connect, one Belgian and one known worldwide for poker, operate in Belgium under one and the same authorisation, held by one company.
Six licences under one brand name
The largest concentration in the register carries the name Golden Palace. Six licences rest on a venue bearing that name, spread across five different sites.
| Anchor venue | Site resting on it |
|---|---|
| Golden Palace Waterloo | goldenpalacedice.be |
| Golden Palace Peruwelz | goldenpalacedice.be, second licence |
| Golden Palace Lier | fortunacasino.be |
| Golden Palace | oria.be |
| Golden Palace Nieuwpoort | ggpoker.be |
| Golden Palace Ronse | meridiancasino.be |
Two of those sites sit among my published audits, Fortuna and Oria, and it is on reading their documents that the link stops being a supposition.
Three other brands follow closely with five licences each: Circus, Golden Vegas and Starcasino. The Golden Vegas one reads the same way.
| Anchor venue | Site resting on it |
|---|---|
| Golden Vegas | lococasino.be |
| Golden Vegas | goldenvegas-casino.be |
| Golden Vegas | greenjackcasino.be |
| Golden Vegas Deerlijk | dragoncasino.be |
| Golden Vegas Beveren | crazydice.be |
Two brand names starting with the same word proves nothing. Golden Palace and Golden Vegas are two separate venue names in the register, and nothing in the public documents allows them to be connected. I therefore treat them as two separate families.
Each licence has its own holder, and those holders are different companies. The register does not say who owns them. It says only that several online authorisations rest on venues carrying the same name.
Behind those four families come Madison and Versailles with three licences each, then five brands holding two apiece.
Three brands, one cashier page
The register stops there. The operators’ own documents go further, and that is where the finding becomes concrete.
Reading their terms and those of Golden Palace, you find the same declared publisher, the same host and the same data protection officer. And their withdrawal pages state identical conditions word for word: three thousand euros a day, three requests maximum, having staked more than the amount deposited, Belgian bank accounts only.
That is no longer a supposed corporate link, it is a shared platform. Comparing those three sites on their withdrawal timeframes amounts to comparing one page with itself. I have set those statements side by side, with the page each comes from, in my comparison of withdrawal timeframes.
The same pattern elsewhere
The Madison Casino venue serves as the anchor for three sites. I have audited two of them, Madison and BeCasino; the third is diceladbrokes.be. Three brands, three different holders, one venue.
On the Versailles side, the company holding the Versailles Casino and Wellington licences is also the one PlayOne names, in its frequently asked questions, as the issuer of its transfers. PlayOne rests precisely on Versailles Casino.
Finally, two sites declare venues with almost identical names, “36win” and “36 win”, under two different companies. They share their game suppliers, and a 2023 agreement delivered the same set of exclusive titles to both.
What the register does not say
The limits deserve precision, because they are real.
The register proves a holder and an anchor. The terms prove a declared publisher. Neither proves who owns a company’s capital. Two separate companies can carry the same brand name without sharing a shareholder, and the reverse is true as well.
So I never write that one brand belongs to another. I write that they rest on the same venue, or that they declare the same publisher. Less spectacular, and verifiable.
Second limit: none of this is irregular. Belgian law allows a group to hold several licences, each attached to a real venue. The Commission knows, since it grants them. The problem is not the operator but the comparison site presenting you with eight rows as eight independent decisions.
What it changes when you compare
Three practical consequences.
Spreading is not always spreading. Opening an account on three sites from the same set exposes you to the same withdrawal conditions, the same caps and the same support desk. You have not spread a risk, you have repeated it.
An identical stated timeframe is not a confirmation. When two sites display the same promise word for word, it is not that two companies reached the same conclusion. It is the same page published twice.
One thing does not change from one set to another: the legal protections are the same everywhere, because they come from the law and not from the operator. The tools available to you are set out on my responsible gambling page.
The number of licensed casinos is smaller than it looks. Fifty-eight licences, fifty-five sites, thirty-one brands. A comparison that quotes the first figure without explaining the other two gives you an impression of choice that does not match the market.
Check it yourself, in ten minutes
Everything above can be redone without me. Here is how.
- Open the B+ licence table and the A+ licence table on the Commission’s site.
- Find the venue column. Sort on it, or simply look up the name of the venue attached to the site you are interested in.
- See whether other rows carry the same venue name, or a very close one.
- Then open the site’s terms and search for the word “published”. That is where the strongest signal sits.
If you want to see how I use these elements to score an operator, my method sets out the seven criteria and their weighting.
Frequently asked questions
How many online casinos are actually licensed in Belgium?
Fifty-eight licences are active, spread across fifty-five sites. Nine are class A+ and forty-nine class B+. Those sites trace back to only thirty-one brand families.
Why do some brands have a casino site and a dice site?
Because the two catalogues fall under two different licences. An A+ is attached to a land-based casino and allows tables and live play; a B+ is attached to an automatic gaming venue and allows slots and dice. Six brands run both.
Is holding several licences allowed?
Yes. Each licence must be attached to a real and separate venue, and the Belgian Gaming Commission grants them. Nothing described here amounts to an irregularity.
How can I tell whether two sites belong to the same set?
Compare three things: the holder in the register, the anchor venue in the register, and the declared publisher in the terms. If two of the three match, the two sites are not independent of each other.
Is that a problem for the player?
Not in itself, but it changes what “comparing” means. Three sites from the same set often share the same withdrawal conditions and the same support desk. Treating them as three options means believing you are choosing when you are repeating.
Sources and limits
- B+ licence register of the Belgian Gaming Commission, recorded 4 September 2026
- A+ licence register of the Belgian Gaming Commission, recorded 4 September 2026
- The licence categories, explained by the Belgian Gaming Commission
- Terms and conditions of the operators named, consulted during each of my audits
- Belgian gambling act of 7 May 1999 (published in French and Dutch only)
- For the 36win and Palladium Games case only: 2023 industry announcements about game suppliers, which are not an official source and are flagged as such
Recorded 8 September 2026. The register changes: licences are added, others are renewed. The figures on this page apply to that date.
This page does not say who owns what. It records holders, anchor venues and declared publishers, all publicly available. It carries no commercial link at all, unlike my audit entries, and that is deliberate.
If you spot an error or a set I have missed, write to me with the register row concerned. Verifiable corrections are applied quickly.
Three years in iGaming, focused on licensed casinos in Belgium. I write every CasinAudit page myself and check each figure against an official source.