Casino bonuses in Belgium: why they no longer exist

By Arthur D · Published 6 September 2026 | Updated 13 October 2026

There is no welcome bonus at any online casino licensed in Belgium. Not one, at any operator, since 1 March 2020. If a site promises you one while addressing the Belgian public, that site is not licensed here.

That is not the answer you were looking for, and I would rather give it in the first line than in the third paragraph. But it calls for a follow-up, because operators have not stopped rewarding their players. They do it differently, and nobody has bothered to explain how.

I read the promotion pages of the operators I have audited. Here is what they say.

Why the casino bonus disappeared on 1 March 2020

The ban does not come from a recent text. It rests on article 60 of the gambling act of 7 May 1999, which prohibits premiums offered to players.

For years that ban applied only to land-based casinos. Online platforms could offer a bonus as long as it stayed below €275. Two regimes for the same activity.

One operator challenged that difference before the Council of State, arguing discrimination and unfair competition. On 6 February 2020 the Council of State ruled in its favour and extended the ban to the online market.

Three weeks later, on Sunday 1 March, every licensed online casino withdrew its welcome bonuses. Some deleted their promotions page overnight. Others kept it and filled it differently.

What exactly is prohibited

The premium given to the player. The welcome bonus, the no-deposit bonus, the deposit match, the spins granted on registration: anything that amounts to giving money or playing credit to attract or retain a player.

What is not prohibited is making the game mechanics themselves more generous. That is precisely where operators moved.

The four schemes that replaced the bonus

Reading the promotion pages of the five operators I have audited, the same four building blocks come back almost everywhere. The names change, the principle does not.

The loyalty club

You collect points by staking, and those points open tiers or convert into money. BeCasino is the most explicit: its BeClub gives one BeCoin per €10 staked on dice games and slots, one per €20 on table games, one per €30 elsewhere. Those coins are then exchanged for money.

It is a cashback system tied to playing volume. At Golden Palace the same principle is called Golden Points and raises a rank. At Madison they are Madicoins and seven tiers, from Steel to Legend.

The missions

Objectives to complete: play a number of rounds, reach an amount, try a game. Golden Palace distinguishes three kinds, those available immediately, those unlocked as you progress, and those tied to an event. They reset daily or weekly.

The reward is not money given away but loyalty points, access to a tournament or a boost. At Oria, a September mission invites players to land the biggest multiplier on one studio’s games, for a share of a €1,000 prize pool. Others have you collect items across sessions to unlock a wheel and a multiplier.

The boosts

This is the most widespread scheme, and the one whose conditions vary most. BeCasino’s BeBoost doubles winnings on a round. At Oria, the Summer Boost gives 100% on the winnings of ten winning spins, on a different game each week, and capped at €5 a day. Madison even offers a boost in exchange for installing its app.

Those caps are what to look at. A 100% boost limited to €5 a day does not have the same effect as a boost with no stated ceiling, and that is rarely highlighted.

The tournaments and the jackpots

Tournaments rank players over a period and share out a prize pool. They are often built with a game supplier, which explains why the same studio names appear across operators. Madison advertises one to three a day, up to €200; Oria runs monthly tournaments with €1,000 pools.

Jackpots drop at random. BeCasino publishes two: a Random Jackpot that rises without a ceiling and can drop at any moment, and a Lucky Jackpot capped at €500 that can drop before reaching it. No action is required, playing with real money is enough to qualify. Oria and Madison each have their equivalent.

The same bonus replacement on three platforms

Here is the comparison, operator by operator.

Operator	Loyalty	Missions	Boost	Tournaments	Jackpot
Golden Palace	Club, Golden Points	Yes	Activity boosts	Yes	None
Oria	Club	Yes	Daily Wheel	Yes	Yes
Madison	MadiClub, Madicoins	None	Boosts	Yes	Yes
BeCasino	BeClub, BeCoins	Yes	BeBoost	Yes	BeJackpot
PlayOne	Extra Payout, Tokens	None	Tokens Boosters	Run by studios	None

Golden Palace and Oria declare the same publisher in their terms, so their identical schemes are no surprise. I set out those connections behind the brands.

But Madison runs on another platform and BeCasino on a third. The same four building blocks appear there all the same, under other names. So this is not an effect of shared technology: the whole market converged on the same answer after March 2020.

PlayOne went for a different formula: a status-based programme called Extra Payout, set out in article 11.5 of its terms. Every 10 euros you stake within a single session, on a dice game or a slot machine, earns one Token, worth 0.10% of the stake. Those Tokens then convert into withdrawable cash at one cent each. The status drops back to zero after twelve months without a deposit. The same terms also provide for Token Boosters and allow game studios to run tournaments on the site.

A sign-up boost, six years after the ban

One operator steps outside the common pattern, and what its documents say needs reading closely.

Madison’s promotions page advertises increased winnings from registration: a Sign-Up Boost of +200% on winnings, capped at €40, presented as reserved for new players. The page itself uses the word “bonus” to describe it.

Its terms, meanwhile, explain that the operator reserves the right to set the return to player rate, upwards and downwards, and that temporary increases in that rate “should not be considered as bonuses or gifts”.

The other operators do not do this. Oria’s Summer Boost is open to every player, changes game each week and caps at €5 a day. It rewards activity, not arrival.

What I record, and what I do not say

Three facts, all checkable on public pages. Benefits tied to registration have been banned since March 2020. A licensed operator offers a benefit tied to registration and reserved for new players. And its terms state in advance that such a benefit is not a bonus.

I am not saying this is unlawful. Giving a legal characterisation to a scheme belongs to the Belgian Gaming Commission, which exercises that oversight and has already found that some promotions exceeded the limits of the law in the betting sector. I place the three facts side by side, which no comparison site does, and leave you to draw your own conclusion. The detail is in my Madison Casino audit.

What about promo codes?

The question comes up often, usually as an operator’s name followed by “promo code”.

The answer is the same: a promotional code unlocking playing credit does not exist on the licensed Belgian market, because that credit would be precisely the prohibited premium. The codes you find when searching point at best to offers predating 2020, at worst to sites that are not licensed here.

What does exist are the schemes described above, and they require no code: you are enrolled automatically when you open an account.

One last point of vocabulary: several operators file their instant withdrawal under their promotions page, next to the club and the jackpots. It is not a benefit given away but a feature of the payment service, and it comes with conditions the commercial page does not repeat. I have recorded what each Belgian operator states about its timeframes.

What the absence of a bonus changes for you

Three practical consequences.

A promised bonus is a warning, not a good deal. It is in fact the clearest signal there is: a site promising a bonus is stepping over one rule. It usually steps over the others too, starting with the identity check mandatory since May 2025. The other points to check are set out on my page on the seven points I examine.

Current schemes reward playing volume, not registration. A loyalty club, by design, pays more to whoever stakes more. That is neither good nor bad in itself, but it is not the same logic as a welcome bonus, and it is better to know. The tools for keeping control are on my responsible gambling page.

Comparing promotions no longer means much. All five operators offer a variant of the same principle, under different names. What really separates them lies elsewhere: payment timeframes, clarity of terms, how a complaint is handled. That is what I examine in each of my audits.

And since no bonus ever tops up your balance, what you pay in is exactly what you have to play with. Those deposits are capped at two hundred euro a week per site, a framework that depends on no operator.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and limits

• Belgian gambling act of 7 May 1999, article 60 (published in French and Dutch only)
• Council of State ruling no. 246.999, 6 February 2020
• Promotions page of becasino.be
• Club, Missions, Daily Wheel and tournament pages of goldenpalacedice.be
• Promotions page of madisoncasino.be and its terms, article 8.4
• Promotions page of oria.be
• Terms of playone.be, articles 11.5 and 11.6

This table covers the operators whose documents I have read. Other licensed brands will be added as my audits progress, and the finding may change.

This page gives no legal characterisation to any scheme. It reports what operators publish and what the law says, and notes that the judgement belongs to the Belgian Gaming Commission. It carries no commercial link.

If an operator changes its promotions or you spot an error, write to me with the page concerned.