Casinos Austria International Belgium, the company that controls the Brussels VIAGE Casino, has just lost its two licenses with which it operates casino and online betting games in Belgium.
Responding to a request made by another player in the local market, the Belgian Council of State ruled that it was unconstitutional for the operator to use the same domain name for its different types of games.
Accumulation of accesses
In accordance with Belgian law, several land-based casino operators wishing to offer their games online have partnered with other operators. In doing so, some of them used the same domain name to offer different types of games. This is the case of the Casinos Austria International Belgium group .
In order to offer its games online, the owner of Viage had applied for and obtained two licenses from the French Gaming Commission : an A+ license for online casino games and an FA+ license for sports betting games. For this second part, the Austrian operator partnered with Betway. Until now, the Austrian operator had offered all of its online games through the latter’s URL, www.betway.be.
This practice, which had previously been ignored, in fact constitutes an » accumulation of access » and was finally recognized as illegal by the Belgian Constitutional Court.
>>> Also read: » Legal casino in Belgium: Each has its own license «
The legal battle of a Belgian “small operator”
The license revocation stems from the successive appeals filed by Rocoluc, a land-based gaming operator. Over the past year, the operator has taken issue with this type of « collaboration, » asking the Constitutional Court to rule on its legality.
After review, the members of the institution agreed with Rocoluc and stated that this practice violates the Constitution , because it prohibits physical companies operating in the gambling sector from jointly operating the same headquarters, without prohibiting a similar practice for online operators (the use of a common URL for several gaming licenses).
In a ruling dated July 19, 2018, the Constitutional Court paved the way for the revocation of the « + » (online) licenses of operators engaging in this practice. Implementing this ruling, the Belgian Council of State revoked the Casinos Austria group’s two online licenses.
Other Belgian operators already sanctioned
Although the decision to revoke Casinos Austria International Belgium’s A+ and FA+ licenses was only made on August 1st, the Belgian Constitutional Court’s ruling has already created difficulties for other online operators operating in the local market. Circus, Casino Knokke, BM and Betfirst are in similar situations.
Some of them, however, were able to take appropriate measures before being sanctioned by the Council of State. This is notably the case of the Knokke Casino, which applied for and obtained new operating licenses for its online gaming offering. The operator was thus able to readjust its URLs. The same goes for BM, which restructured its online offering to avoid any inconvenience.
For Casinos Austria, the solution will likely follow the same process. Otherwise, the operator risks hefty financial fines in the coming weeks.
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