The Government of Belgium announced that the deposit limit at online gambling operators has been officially reduced to €200 per week as of October 20th, 2022. In the future, local players will only be permitted to deposit up to €200 in their accounts, which marks a significant reduction from the period deposit limit of €500.
The measure has been unveiled after the competent authorities saw some heated debates on the matter after some lawmakers argued that the measure is too restrictive and is not based on evidence.
The main reasoning behind the move is that anyone who is willing to boost the aforementioned deposit limit would have to face the required affordability checks so that gambling companies offering their services to Belgian people make sure they are not inflicting any harm on consumers. Considering the fact they are getting increasingly restrictive in nature, affordability checks are getting a hot topic for many gambling regulatory bodies across Europe.
For example, affordability checks have been made extremely important in the UK, while the country’s Government is struggling to update the regulation of the local gambling industry. The opponents of the more restrictive measures have argued that the limitations would simply encourage customers to turn to some offshore gambling providers, which continue to target various regulated European markets, such as the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.
Affordability Checks Remain a Hot-Button Topic Although Requirements for KYC and AML Policies
Despite the controversy surrounding them, experts say that affordability checks do make sense at a certain point when it comes to the gambling industry.
However, the process employed in Belgium may not be particularly refined at first. Operators are not allowed to make their own decision on whether players are actually able to afford to have their spending limit restored to €500. Instead of this, they are required to get in contact with the National Bank of Belgium and provide it with the information to weigh in and decide whether a player can afford to spend (and, possibly, lose) so much money. This is supposed to happen within three days but the system has not been put to a test so far and no one is able to say if it works properly or not.
The more restrictive measures and the lengthy affordability checks, however, make sense in case the customers’ privacy is a concern. According to some critics of the new measures, operators would be able to access too much personal information about their customers, although this is somehow expected as gambling companies are subject to strict regulatory standards, which specifically require them to conduct mandatory know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) checks.
Belgian gamblers will be given the opportunity to request to have their deposit limits lowered below the €200 limit, which is now set as the minimum amount. The interactive gambling industry in the country has undergone multiple changes since it was officially made legal in 2011, with the passage of deposit limits being one of the most controversial matters so far.
