You scroll to the foot of a casino site. A licence number, the name of a regulator, sometimes a clickable seal leading to an official register. Everything looks in order.
And in one sense it is. Those licences exist, they are issued by real authorities, and the number you check often corresponds to something real.
The problem is not that they are fake. It is that they do not apply here. A site holding a Curaçao or Maltese licence is not allowed to offer its games to a player residing in Belgium. It is not a site without a licence, it is a site with the wrong one.
What those licences actually check
Let us be fair: they are not empty shells.
A foreign regulator generally imposes real obligations on its holders. It verifies the operator’s identity, checks the technical compliance of the games, sometimes the segregation of player funds. An operator losing its licence loses its business.
What it does not do is represent you. It protects the integrity of the market it regulates, under the rules of its own country, for the players that country entrusts to it.
You are not one of them.
Why a foreign licence does not apply in Belgium
The principle is simple and has nothing specific to gambling about it.
It is the country where the player lives that decides who may offer them a service, not the country where the company is established. An operator wishing to address the Belgian public needs a Belgian licence, issued by the Belgian Gaming Commission, whatever authorisations it holds elsewhere.
A foreign licence is therefore neither recognised, nor equivalent, nor transferable. It describes what the operator may do in another country, and nothing more.
That is also why a site perfectly respectable in its home jurisdiction can end up blocked in Belgium without having done anything dishonest. It simply did not apply for the right authorisation.
What you lose, concretely
This is where the difference stops being theoretical. Four protections disappear, and none is replaced.
Your self-exclusion stops working
The Belgian register of people banned from gambling is queried only by operators holding a Belgian licence. That is a condition of the licence.
So someone who excluded themselves for their own protection stays blocked everywhere in Belgium and passes without obstacle on a foreign site. That is the gravest point on this list, and I set it out in my article on how the EPIS register works.
No complaint will be examined
It is the Belgian Gaming Commission that writes this, and it deserves slow reading: faced with a complaint about an illegal site, for instance where a win goes unpaid, it can do nothing beyond adding that site to its list. Complaints are not examined.
A report is drawn up, but it serves to list the site, not to recover your money.
The Belgian regulator therefore tells you itself that nobody will handle your case. That is not negligence: it has no hold at all over an operator that never applied for its licence.
No gambling limit applies
The protections set out in Belgian law, including the weekly stake limit and its check against the central credit register, bind only licensed operators. A foreign site is held to none of them, even if it displays some of its own accord.
And the absence of an identity check turns against you
That is often what attracts people to these sites: you open an account without sending a single document. Since May 2025 no operator licensed in Belgium allows that, and I have set out exactly what verification requires.
The day a dispute arises, the question reverses. You have to prove the account is yours, that the deposits came from you, that the win is yours. With no prior verification, you have nothing to produce.
What felt like convenience at sign-up becomes an absence of evidence at the moment it counts.
What you risk
Belgian law does not target operators alone.
A player who has knowingly gambled on an illegal gambling site faces a fine. The text sets a range of €26 to €25,000, but those amounts must be multiplied by the additional décimes, a coefficient applied to every Belgian criminal fine. It rose from 8 to 10 on 1 February 2026.
The fine actually incurred therefore runs from €260 to €250,000. For the site’s operator, the base range is €100 to €100,000, so from one thousand euros to one million once the décimes are applied.
Two honest qualifications. The word “knowingly” appears in the text and forms part of the offence. And I do not know how often such prosecutions actually target players rather than operators: the law provides, I do not claim to know what is enforced.
Which is why the fine is not the real subject. The complete absence of recourse is.
Looking a site up in the blacklist proves nothing
The Commission publishes the list of sites it has had blocked. Many players use it as a test: if the site is not on it, it must be in order.
That reasoning runs backwards, and the Commission says so itself: the list is not exhaustive. Sites not yet on it may perfectly well be illegal.
The list records what has been blocked, meaning what has been spotted, processed and published. It describes a past action, not the state of the market.
The only check that proves anything is the reverse: do not look for the site in the list of banned sites, look for it in the register of licensed ones.
The check that takes thirty seconds
Three steps, in this order.
- Look for the Belgian licence number in the footer. A licensed operator displays it, that is an obligation.
- Find it in the Belgian Gaming Commission register. If it is not there, stop right away.
- Check for the Always Play Legally logo, which the Commission created for this very purpose and which only holders of a Belgian licence may display.
If you simply want to know where to play without redoing that work, I have published the results of my own checks on my page on what makes an online casino reliable, with the detail of what I read at each one.
Frequently asked questions
Is a Curaçao or Maltese licence valid in Belgium?
No. Those licences are real and impose genuine obligations in their own country, but they do not allow games to be offered to a player residing in Belgium. Only a Belgian Gaming Commission licence does.
What happens if a foreign site does not pay my winnings?
The Commission will not handle your complaint. It says so: it can do nothing beyond adding the site to its list. You have no recourse before the Belgian regulator.
Do I risk anything as a player?
Yes, a fine. The text provides for €26 to €25,000 for a player who knowingly gambled on an illegal site, amounts to be multiplied by the additional décimes, raised to 10 since February 2026.
Does my self-exclusion protect me on those sites?
No. The register of people banned from gambling is queried only by operators holding a Belgian licence. A foreign site is not connected to it.
If a site is not on the blacklist, is it licensed?
No, and that is a common shortcut. The Commission states that its list is not exhaustive. The only reliable check is to look for the site in the licence register, not in the list of blocked sites.
How do I recognise a licensed operator in thirty seconds?
By its licence number, found in the official register, and by the Always Play Legally logo, reserved for holders of a Belgian licence.
Sources
- Illegal gambling, Belgian Gaming Commission, for the penalties, the fact that complaints are not examined and the non-exhaustive nature of the list
- List of sites blocked by the Commission
- Belgian act of 19 December 2025 on the increase of additional décimes, in force since 1 February 2026
- Belgian gambling act of 7 May 1999
Recorded 8 September 2026. The décimes coefficient and the statutory amounts may change; in case of doubt, the official sources are the authority.
Three years in iGaming, focused on licensed casinos in Belgium. I write every CasinAudit page myself and check each figure against an official source.