The end of betting shops in the center cities?

The future of betting shops is not looking great. Before an operator can open a legal betting office, the last decision on granting a license falls under the authority of the cities from 2021. Recently Genk and Maasmechelen already discussed their future plans on no longer allowing class 4 betting shops to operate in their city. Now it’s Leuven as the first big center city of Vlaams Brabant to put a halt on the betting shop licenses. This confirms a new trend among Belgian cities to stop extending existing licenses.

Licenses increasingly difficult to obtain

It appears that licensing betting shops will become more and more difficult in the future. At this moment on the website of the Gaming Commission, there’s about 467 licenses granted for betting shops in Belgium. In a short timeframe, four cities have already announced that they will no longer issue licenses for physical betting shops or renew them.

In September, the city of Geel was the first to impose such a ban, followed shortly after by Genk and Maasmechelen in the province of Limburg. Now, Leuven also seems to want to eliminate betting shops from its urban landscape.

The city of Louvain wants to eliminate betting shops

At the municipal council meeting the week of September 25, Els van Hoof declared, on behalf of the CD&V, that the only effective way to combat and prevent gaming addiction is an eradication policy.

“Betting shops have no added value for the city,” Van Hoof told Het Laatste Nieuws. “The number of people addicted to gambling is increasing around the world and gambling addiction pushes people into poverty and debt. This is why we support an eradication policy in the territory of Leuven, because we want to remove all triggers for gambling addicts. This is not a miracle solution as there is also gambling online and at newspaper shops, but it sends a clear signal.”

Mayor refuses new betting shops

Of course, the municipal council cannot simply stop issuing and renewing licenses for physical betting shops without carrying out a careful assessment. The process depends on the agreements between the municipality and the betting shops in question. It is impossible to immediately shut down a betting center, because a license must be at least three years old before its non-renewal can be considered.

The CD&V was fortunate, however, that the mayor of Leuven, Mohamed Ridouani (Vooruit), seemed to be open to strict measures regarding licenses for betting shops. At the municipal council meeting, he immediately declared that in his opinion there should be no more new betting shops in the city. It has not yet ruled on whether or not to renew the licenses of the two betting shops which are currently open in Louvain. He said, however, that he had no problem with the two locations and that the decision on possible renewal would be made later.

“The two shops present have a historic presence in the city,” Mayor Ridouani told VRT. “No problems are reported, they are also closely monitored in terms of opening hours, security, minimum age of visitors, etc. This is why we have renewed our agreement with these two specific betting shops.

“We have always resisted this, or at least discouraged it,” he also says about the possible signing of new agreements for new betting shops in Leuven. “I also look forward to new legislations that would give local authorities more leeway.”