New online casinos in Belgium: the site is new, the operator is not

By Arthur D

Published 8 September 2026Updated 21 October 202610 min read

Several casino sites have opened in Belgium over recent months. That is true, and it can be checked.

What is less true is that they come from new players. No operator has entered the Belgian market for years, and that is no coincidence: the Commission caps land-based licences and accepts no further applications. The sites that open belong to operators who were already there.

That is not an accusation: it is how a closed market works. But it changes what “new” means, and nobody says so. I read the fifty-eight licences in the register one by one, with their dates and their durations. Here is what they show.

Which new online casinos in Belgium have just arrived

These are the seven most recent authorisations in the register, by decision date.

Official register

The seven most recent decisions

SiteDecisionTerm grantedExpiry
peppermillcasino.be25 June 20266 years 3 monthsOct. 2032
oria.be renewal23 April 20269 yearsApr. 2035
meridiancasino.be18 Dec. 20254 years 10 monthsOct. 2030
greenjackcasino.be no site when recorded20 Nov. 20258 years 1 monthDec. 2033
fortunacasino.be1 July 20252 years 8 monthsMar. 2028
dragoncasino.be28 Feb. 20253 years 4 monthsJune 2028
lococasino.be21 Nov. 20244 years 1 monthDec. 2028
Register of A+ and B+ licences, Belgian Gaming Commission, as recorded in September 2026. Each bar sets the term against the nine years of a full authorisation; the shortest is shown in orange.

Only one runs for nine years. The other six received a shorter authorisation, and that is not an anomaly: an online licence always expires together with the land-based licence carrying it.

One case deserves an immediate mention: Green Jack obtained its licence in November 2025, but its site was not yet reachable when this record was made. A licence is not an opening.

The new Belgian casinos I have audited

I have not audited all seven. Among the sites with a decision dated 2023 or later, five have been through my document-by-document review: Oria and Fortuna appear in the table, while BeCasino, Golden Palace and Ladbrokes received theirs in 2023. I publish their scores and my reservations.

Decisions since 2023, sites I have audited · scores as of 21 October 2026

Sorted from newest to oldest decision. Each score out of 100 comes from the full audit of that site.

  1. 2026decision
    Licence
    B+4274Golden Palace establishment
    Decision
    23 April 2026renewal
    Expiry
    April 2035
    77score /100
    • Some forty studios on show
    • PayPal accepted
    • Terms dated March 2023
    What I notedfrom my review of its documents

    Of the seven, it alone restarts on a full nine-year term, following a complete re-examination by the Commission. Around forty game suppliers can be seen before you sign up, PayPal is accepted, and a standard bank transfer comes with a stated timeframe: ten working days.

    My reservation: terms dated March 2023, which still do not mention the May 2025 verification duty.

  2. 2025decision
    Licence
    B+4910Golden Palace Lier
    Decision
    1 July 2025
    Expiry
    March 2028
    80score /100
    • Quantified withdrawal terms
    • Data protection officer reachable
    • Fast route: Belgian account
    What I notedfrom my review of its documents

    Of all the sites I have audited, this is the one that went live most recently. Its withdrawal rules are spelled out in figures, including the daily ceiling and how many requests you may make; its data protection officer is named and has a direct line; and one clause lets a complaint be passed on to the Belgian Gaming Commission.

    My reservation: fast payouts need a Belgian bank account, and its authorisation runs out in March 2028.

  3. 2023decision
    Licence
    B+4264Madison Casino
    Decision
    19 October 2023
    Expiry
    September 2028
    77score /100
    • Ownership published
    • Payout within 30 min
    • Thin responsible gambling page
    What I notedfrom my review of its documents

    No other operator I have audited discloses who owns it and how it got here: its dated timeline starts in 2006. Payouts land in under thirty minutes, weekends included, and the site lists by name the twenty-one Belgian banks it is compatible with.

    My reservation: its responsible gambling page stays too thin.

  4. 2023decision

    Golden Palace

    All my findings
    Licence
    B+18652Golden Palace Peruwelz
    Decision
    19 January 2023the site’s second licence
    Expiry
    February 2031
    80score /100
    • PCI-DSS compliant payments
    • IBAN validator named
    • Self-exclusion reversible
    What I notedfrom my review of its documents

    No audited site documents payment security as thoroughly: PCI-DSS compliance is stated, and bank details are guaranteed never to travel unencrypted. It also names the company that validates your IBAN, a check other operators leave to an unnamed third party.

    My reservation: a single click cancels a self-exclusion, while a simple break cannot be lifted the same way.

  5. 2023decision
    Licence
    A+65721Grand Casino de Dinant
    Decision
    19 January 2023renewal
    Expiry
    January 2038
    78score /100
    • Four companies named
    • Authorised until 2038
    • Three withdrawal timeframes
    What I notedfrom my review of its documents

    The only A+ licence holder among my audits, with the Grand Casino de Dinant as its land-based anchor. Its January 2023 decision is a renewal: the entry has sat in the register since November 2019, and the authorisation now runs until 2038, the most distant expiry of the five. Its terms and conditions declare four companies for a single site, each one with its company number.

    My reservation: its FAQ gives three incompatible timeframes for the same withdrawal, without saying which one applies.

Oria, Fortuna and Ladbrokes carry commercial links in orange: open an account after clicking and I earn a commission. That commission plays no part in the seven criteria, no operator sees an audit before it goes live, and a button only ever appears on a site I have actually audited, which is why Peppermill, Meridian, Green Jack, Dragon and Loco have none yet. The BeCasino and Golden Palace buttons lead straight to their sites, with no commercial deal behind them.

Those five are the ones whose documents I have read among the decisions taken since 2023. The full ranking, across all operators, is in my comparison of Belgium’s licensed online casinos.

New online casino: three dates that tell different stories

Every line in the register carries three dates that comparison sites confuse.

  • The decision date is when the Commission grants the authorisation.
  • The publication date is when the line appears in the register.
  • And the site’s launch appears nowhere.

The three can be years apart. Green Jack has a November 2025 decision and no site online. Fortuna obtained its own in July 2025 and opened months later. Conversely, Oria has an April 2026 decision but has been in the register since January 2022: its authorisation was renewed, not created.

A comparison site that headlines “new casino” on the decision date alone is wrong one time in four.

Timeline: decision, register publication and actual opening of a Belgian online casino

An online licence has no life of its own

This is the point nobody uses, and yet the Commission states it in black and white.

“Supplementary licences are valid for the same period as offline licences and must be renewed at the same time.”

Belgian Gaming Commission, page on B and B+ licences

An online authorisation therefore has no term of its own: it expires with the arcade or casino it is attached to.

Fortuna is the clearest example. Its online licence was granted in July 2025 and expires in March 2028: two years and eight months, not because it is second-hand, but because the land-based licence carrying it falls due on that date.

What the term tells you is therefore not the site’s age. It is how long before the whole thing goes back before the Commission.

How many new online casinos the register actually counts

Applied to the fifty-eight licences, the calculation gives two categories.

  • 58Online licences in the registerNine A+ and forty-nine B+, each tied to a land-based establishment
  • 44First online authorisationThe entry appears in the register within days of the decision
  • 14RenewalThe entry was already in the register, sometimes for years

Forty-four online authorisations out of fifty-eight are therefore first entries, and the most recent dates from June 2026. Online licences are indeed granted, regularly.

But they never go to a newcomer. The Commission caps A licences at nine, all allocated, and B licences at one hundred and eighty, and it states that no application can be submitted today for either. An online extension can only be requested by a land-based operator who already holds one.

That concentration has another consequence, which I set out separately: the fifty-eight licences are shared among a far smaller number of brand names.

What a new online casino in Belgium changes for you

Three practical consequences, and none of them is theoretical.

  1. A near expiry is information. Fortuna’s authorisation runs out in March 2028. It will very probably be renewed, as most are. But it is a fact no comparison site displays, and it is public.

  2. A new site has no history. That is the real drawback of novelty: no known dispute, no payment times observed over the long run, no reputation to look up. What remains checkable is the documents, and I examine those against the seven points that make an online casino reliable.

    That is especially true of withdrawals: a site that opened six months ago has no timings observed over the long run. What can be checked is what it states and what its terms permit, and I have recorded the gap between the two at every Belgian operator.

  3. And novelty guarantees nothing about compliance. A recent site holding a Belgian licence is bound by the same obligations as an old one. A recent site without a Belgian licence is bound by nothing, even if it displays a foreign authorisation. I have explained why a foreign casino licence carries no weight in Belgium.

How to check whether an online casino is genuinely new

The register is public and the check takes two minutes.

  1. Open the Belgian Gaming Commission licence register and search for the site’s name.
  2. Compare the decision date with the publication date. A few days apart means the entry has just come into the register. A publication years before the decision means a renewal.
  3. Finally, look at the class: an A+ or a B+. It says nothing about age, but it decides what the site is allowed to offer, and the difference comes down to a detail few players know about.

It is the same work I carry out on every operator I audit, and how I weight the criteria is set out in my audit methodology.

Frequently asked questions

Are there really new online casinos in Belgium?

Yes for the sites, no for the operators. Online authorisations are granted regularly, the most recent in June 2026. But they only go to operators who already hold a land-based licence, and none of those is available any more.

How do I know whether a Belgian casino is genuinely new?

By comparing its decision date with its publication date in the register. A few days apart signals a first entry; a publication years earlier signals a renewal.

Which online casino is the most recent in Belgium?

It depends what you measure. The most recent decision is Peppermill’s, in June 2026. The most recently launched site among my audits is Fortuna. And Green Jack has a November 2025 licence with no reachable site when this record was made.

Is a new casino riskier than an established one?

Not in law: the obligations are identical. A recent site does, however, have no history of payments or disputes, which makes examining the documents all the more useful.

Why do some licences expire so soon?

Because an online licence expires together with the land-based licence carrying it. An authorisation granted mid-cycle therefore shows a short term, without that saying anything about its age.

Can a casino announced as new not yet exist?

Yes. A licence can be granted months before a site opens. Green Jack is an example: authorisation in November 2025, site not reachable when this record was made.

Sources and limits

The distinction between a first entry and a renewal rests on the gap between the decision date and the publication date: that is a reading of the register data, not an official characterisation. In case of doubt, the Commission is the authority. This page will be updated as the register changes.

Portrait of Arthur D, author of the casino audits on CasinAudit

The author of this page

Arthur D

Three years in iGaming, focused on licensed casinos in Belgium. I write every CasinAudit page myself and check each figure against an official source.

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The newest of my auditsFortuna · 80/100

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