Lottery products such as Whoohoo and Scooore still available for players despite being 21 years old despite ban
There is currently an uncomfortable situation in Belgium. The Superior Health Council advocates a total ban on access to and advertising of games of chance for young people aged 18 to 21. This is already the case for legal providers, but the state-owned company ‘The National Lottery’ still offers similar products such as Scooore and Whoohoo games to players under the age of 21.
Prohibited access for persons under 21 years of age
“We must firmly remove opportunities for gambling for young people under the age of 21,” is the advice of the Superior Health Council. It calls for a total ban on access to gambling in any form for young people under the age of 21.
The new Gambling Act does provide for an increase in the legal age for playing games of chance from 18 to 21 years from September, but not for all games. The legal age for access to National Lottery games is still set at 18 years.
Total ban on advertising for games of chance
The Superior Health Council also calls for a revision of the law on advertising for games of chance.
According to them, the partial advertising ban since July 1, 2023 is not sufficient. Addiction can start very young and young people under the age of 21 are the main targets of online gambling. To protect the public from this risk, the Health Council asks the Belgian government to follow the example of other European countries and completely ban all forms of advertising for games of chance, including that of the National Lottery.
The judgement of the Gaming Commission
Magali Clavie, chairman of the Gaming Commission, spoke about these requests during an interview by RTBF. It is nonsense for the Gaming Commission to block every form of gambling, except that of the National Lottery.
“It’s a completely lopsided situation, especially when we know that certain products that the National Lottery offers on their site are products that are really very similar to products that can be found on casino sites of private operators.”
Magali Clavie
The Gaming Commission is also concerned about the risk of players being led to illegal sites that do not respect player protection rules. And who do not take any measures to prohibit access to their site to young people under the age of 21. The Gambling Club had also communicated about this to a study by Ipsos.
“The risk is that the player will be led to illegal sites.” Because if you ban advertising for Belgian operators, who are controlled and must respect certain rules, advertising will inevitably remain possible for illegal operators. In that case, players will only encounter illegal operators. In any case, this leads to a range of games that is not monitored at all, and where all the protection rules provided for in Belgium are not respected.”
Magali Clavie