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The Belgian gambling minister, Secretary of State Carl Devlies announced the countries plans for regulating online casinos.  Typically when a country decides to regulate the online gambling industry it is cause to celebrate and at the very least a strong move in the favor of consumer protection.

Unfortunately in this case it seems that Belgium is using their regulation processes to promote a protectionist agenda.  The draft legislation introduced by Devlies explained the process as such:

“Only those companies in possession of a license in the real world will be able to offer those same activities in the virtual world. Thus, a casino operator in possession of a supplementary license would be able to offer only casino games via the internet and not, for example, sports betting.”

This means that only the brick and mortar casino establishments already operating in the country will be given license to operate online casinos.  The Belgium Gaming Commission still intends to use Internet service providers to block access to online casinos operated outside of the countries boarders.

This is not what the European Union had in mind when they encourage countries that already allow gambling in their boarders to regulate online casinos.

Belgium will not be able to pass the legislation without a review from the European Commission, which will rule on the proposed act by June 29, 2009.  It will be no surprise if Belgium revises the current draft before the EC review in order to make it more friendly to European trade agreement.

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