Bwin.BE Officially Listed as Whitelisted Online Gaming Operator in Belgium

bwin.party has been removed from Belgium's online gaming blacklist and has been officially granted an A+ gaming license.

To obtain a Belgian license, all online poker operators must parter with an establish brick-and-mortar entity. Bwin's licensee is listed as Casino Kursaal Oostende NV, operators of a casino in Ostend. They are themselves owned by Belcasinos, a subsidiary of the Partouche Group.

The official listing comes three months after bwin.party announced it had resolved its dispute with the gaming regulator and had come to an agreement to partner with Partouche and launch a licensed online gambling site.

Belgian players will be allowed to play on the bwin.BE site and have full access to bwin’s global player pool. The Belgian regulations impose an 11% gaming tax but there are no restrictions on deposits or games offered.

Belgian poker players now have the choice of PokerStars, Unibet, Poker770, GoldenPalace.be, Win2day and Unibet.

Today's announcement brings to an end a long period of legal back and forth between operator and regulator.

Four months ago, bwin.party co-CEO Norbert Teufelberger was detained by Belgian police while attending the Responsible Gaming Day gaming conference. A shocked industry immediately rallied behind Teufelberger and several key figures signed a letter to the Financial Times complaining about this “intimidation.”

Previously, the company had been fined €75k by the Belgian Correctional Court for offering gambling and poker without a license. bwin denied that it had done anything wrong and argued that it had always operated within the law.

It filed its own lawsuit against the Belgian government alleging that the Belgian regulations breached EU law. This was dismissed by the Belgian courts, so the company filed a complaint with the European Commission. The Commission has instructed Belgium to respond, since the requirement to partner with a Belgian B&M casino appears to be a clear restriction of trade under the EU Treaties.

The legal bickering may now be put on hold as bwin.party’s official recognition gives it what it wanted in the first place. The European Commission’s Action Plan includes an analysis of alleged breaches of EU treaties and it is likely that major legal challenges to national regulatory regimes will not progress until the Commission adopts a clearer position.