Industry bodies warn against Belgian law forcing players to have separate accounts for each product

The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) and the Belgian Association of Gaming Operators (BAGO) have warned against a new piece of legislation in Belgium, seeking to oblige players to set up a separate player account for each product they wish to use with each individual iGaming operator.

According to the EGBA, such a move would raise a number of concerning issues for player protection, particularly because it would significantly and negatively disrupt the player experience for many players.

The association also expects that the rule would effect those who play with multiple products with multiple operators, and make the unregulated offering much more attractive to them.

The BAGO identifies four main problems with the legislation:

1. The player would lose control of their own spending pattern.
2. Operators would lose access to players’ gaming behaviour and find it more difficult to detect problematic players and warn and guide them in a timely manner.
3. The sharing of consolidated data on problematic gambling behaviour with Governments and academics would also be made more difficult, hampering the compilation of new insights and future policy.
4. For the sake of ease of play, BAGO predicts that the move will entice players to turn to illegal operators which do not comply with the rules and therefore do not offer player protection.

BAGO says it therefore advocates maintaining the single player accounts per operator and thus offering more, better and substantiated player protection.

This issue was first raised last year, when Belgium’s Constitutional Court confirmed the annulment of the country’s 1999 Gambling Act, which essentially confirmed that operators may not offer different game types on the same website.

As the act had largely been superseded by a 2019 version, little aside from the change mandating the separation of product verticals remained.