On a game’s information sheet, one figure catches the eye: 96%, sometimes more. That is the RTP, the return to player, and at a casino in Belgium it often passes for a promise. On 24 September, reading PlayOne’s terms and conditions, I came across an article 11.5 that adds a top-up to that figure without touching it.
The percentage on screen is only one storey, then. Below it sits what the law requires, or does not. Above it, what some operators add or reserve the right to change. And beside it, what the Gaming Commission records on the money actually staked.
My reading, after the official texts and seven operator contracts: the only minimum rate I found in Belgian rules applies to physical machines. For online play, the figure that tells you most is not the game’s own, it is the one the Commission measures once the year is over.
A payout percentage is read over €100 of total stakes
RTP stands for return to player. A 96% game is designed to pay back, on average, €96 in winnings for every €100 staked in total. The remaining €4 is the house’s theoretical edge, not its net profit.
The word that matters is total. That return shows up over millions of rounds, never over one evening. With €50 in your pocket you can leave with nothing or with several times the amount: the RTP says nothing about the size of the swings, which is what volatility describes.
Winnings you stake again count too. Replaying ten times what you have just won sends far more than €100 through the game, and the 4% edge applies on every pass.
84%: the minimum return to player for machines in a venue
For physical machines, the figure is in writing. The Royal Decree of 8 April 2003 on class II gaming arcades requires every automatic gaming machine to show a theoretical payout rate of at least 84%. The same article requires at least a 10% chance of winning an amount equal to or greater than the stake.
The Commission’s protocol for betting shops, based on the Royal Decree of 22 December 2010, sets the same threshold, as does the one for class I casinos. The rate must be calculated across every realistic combination of play, and the casino protocol makes one exception: interactive poker falls outside the requirement.
84% may look low. It is a legal minimum, not an average, and the Commission’s figures further down show physical machines paying back a good deal more.
No written floor for A+ and B+ sites
The text that governs online play is the Royal Decree of 25 October 2018. I reread it article by article: it deals with gaming limits, exclusion and access to the terms and conditions, but sets no minimum payout rate.
Its only reference to return to player concerned advertising: an advert could not put forward odds of winning that did not match the rate of the game in question. That is a rule about communication, not a level to be met.
A land-based casino stands behind every A+, a gaming arcade behind every B+, and the range on offer depends on what an A+ or B+ licence allows online. Neither comes with a floor percentage in the texts I read. Madison nevertheless writes that it sets its rate “within the limits of the applicable legislation”, without saying which.
The RTP of a dice slot is set by the studio
PlayOne defines it in its terms and conditions: the RTP is a game’s theoretical payout rate, determined by the supplier of that game. It is not the casino that programmes the percentage, it is the studio that designs the game.
On a B+ site, most of the range is made up of dice slots and dice games, two separate families I explain in the dice games on offer in Belgium. Their rate follows the same logic: it belongs to the game, not to the brand that offers it.
In the contracts, the subject stays remarkably quiet. Of the seven sets of terms from audited operators that I opened, only two mention RTP. Those of Fortuna (read on 12 October), Oria and Golden Palace (7 October), BeCasino and Ladbrokes (24 September) say nothing about it.
Extra Payout and Madiclub: two casinos that adjust the rate themselves
Since March 2020, welcome bonuses have been banned in Belgium. The two contracts that mention RTP show where loyalty has moved to: the payout rate.
At PlayOne, article 11.5 describes an Extra Payout, presented as a way of channelling players towards the legal offer. On dice games and slot machines, every €10 staked within a single session earns 1 Token, a theoretical top-up of 0.10%. On roulette, video poker and blackjack it takes €30 per Token, around 0.03%.
Each Token converts into €0.01 that can be withdrawn, on an authenticated account. The contract states that these percentages are neither a guarantee of winnings nor a change to each game’s own RTP: a 96% dice slot stays at 96%, and the extra is paid in addition. On 13 October I reopened the page online, and the article was unchanged.
Madison goes further. Article 8.4 of its terms lets it fix the rate itself, upwards or downwards, and specifies that a temporary increase is not a bonus. The Madiclub appears there as a club that lifts the RTP. It is one of the points weighing on my Madison Casino review.
The payout rate measured by the Commission in 2025
The Gaming Commission’s 2025 annual report, approved on 17 July 2026, publishes a different figure: the rate actually recorded. It sets the winnings paid out against the stakes, replayed stakes included, over the whole year and across all games.
| Type of venue | On site | Online |
|---|---|---|
| Casinos (class I, A+ licence) | 94.34% | 96.86% |
| Gaming arcades (class II, B+ licence) | 97.50% | 96.80% |
Average payout rates for 2025, annual report of the Belgian Gaming Commission (French version), pp. 37 and 39.
You often read that you always get more back online. For casinos, that holds: a gap of 2.52 points in the site’s favour. For gaming arcades, the order flips: the physical venues paid back 97.50% of stakes, their B+ sites 96.80%.
These averages say nothing about a particular game or about your session. They show that in 2025 the sector paid back far more than the 84% floor, and that the gap between venue and site does not always run the same way.
Where to find the RTP before you start a game
The percentage usually sits in the game’s information panel or in its rules, behind a help button. The right moment to look for it is before your first stake, not halfway through a run.
Not every site makes it as visible. During my audits, PlayOne let visitors see suppliers, RTP and paytable before any sign-up, and BeCasino showed a full panel before staking. At Ladbrokes, the rate was not shown consistently, and no demo mode opened from its public pages.
Access to the rate before staking is one of the seven questions I ask to judge which online casino comes out safest. In my audits, how it is presented counts for three points out of ten in the criterion on games, awarded for the clarity of the display and never for the level of the rate itself.
A 97% rate is still an average that works against you on every stake. Settle your budget before you open a game, and keep the tools for setting your own limits within reach.
What this article is, and what it is not
What I read, and nothing more. I report what royal decrees, protocols and a Gaming Commission report say, along with the operators’ contracts, on the dates given below. I do not practise law, and where I write that I found no rule, that finding stops at these texts.
No outside review. No operator, authority or lawyer saw this article before publication, and nobody was asked for comment.
Nobody is being accused. Every operator named here holds a current Belgian licence. Describing Extra Payout or the Madiclub is not a judgement: their legal classification is a matter for the Gaming Commission.
Has a text changed? Contracts and reports move on. If a quotation no longer matches the online version: I will correct the passage and show the date of the correction.
Practical questions about RTP
Where can you check the Commission’s figures yourself?
In its annual report, published on gamingcommission.be. The 2025 edition gives each type of venue its own page, covering on-site and online activity: casinos on page 37, gaming arcades on page 39, cafés on page 40, betting on page 43. It shows, for instance, that bettors got back 80.37% of their stakes in betting shops and 91.11% online.
Do machines in cafés pay back as much as a gaming arcade?
Less. In 2025, machines in drinking establishments returned 92.46% of stakes, against 97.50% in physical gaming arcades. They are class III machines, governed by their own rules.
Does the Commission test online games itself?
Its 2025 report describes the checks its technical evaluation service carries out on the gaming systems of physical venues, from casinos to betting shops. For online play, operators refer to independent auditors, whom their documents do not always name.
What happens to my PlayOne Tokens if I stop depositing?
After twelve months without a credited deposit, the status is reset to zero and the Extra Payout benefits stop, even if you kept playing. Tokens already awarded remain yours and can still be converted.
Sources and limits
The texts and documents read for this article, and what I could not verify.
- Royal Decree of 8 April 2003 on the operating rules for automatic games of chance in class II, art. 3
- Royal Decree of 22 December 2010 on the operating rules for automatic games of chance in class IV, Belgian Official Gazette of 29 December 2010
- Inspection protocol for automatic games of chance, class I, version 3.8 (in French)
- Inspection protocol for automatic games of chance, class IV, version 1.7 (in French)
- Royal Decree of 25 October 2018 on the operating conditions for games of chance and betting run through information society instruments
- Belgian Gaming Commission annual report 2025 (French version), pp. 37, 39, 40, 43 and 51
- PlayOne’s terms and conditions, arts 3 and 11.5, read on 24 September 2026 and checked again online on 13 October 2026
- Madison Casino terms and conditions, art. 8.4, read on 24 September 2026
- Terms and conditions of Fortuna (12 October 2026), Oria and Golden Palace (7 October 2026), BeCasino and Ladbrokes (24 September 2026)
I do not publish the RTP of individual games: it depends on the studio, and I do not quote a percentage I cannot tie to its source. The Commission’s rates are annual averages across all games and describe no site in particular. I found no text setting a minimum rate for machines in cafés, so the article claims none. The audited operators have a commercial agreement with CasinAudit. This article contains no commercial link.
Three years in iGaming, focused on licensed casinos in Belgium. I write every CasinAudit page myself and check each figure against an official source.