The Belgian Gaming Commission, Kansspelcommissie (KSC), has forged an alliance with DNS Belgium in the fight against black market gambling websites.
DNS Belgium is responsible for managing domain names in the country, and this agreement ought to give the KSC better oversight of illicit websites using the '.be' domain.
Any website wanting to have '.be,' '.vlaanderen' or 'brussels' at the end of its URL, must be a part of the DNS Belgium registry, which holds a list of account details for each one.
The new agreement establishes a clear line of communication, whereby when the KSC identifies a site featuring illegal content, it will send a notification to DNS Belgium.
At that point, the domain name holder will be notified of its suspected violation and that it has breached the terms and conditions of its domain name ownership.
Under the terms of the contract made with DNS Belgium, the holder would then be liable to have the domain name revoked if it did not cease the violations.
For the KSC, this semi-automates a segment of the process - under this partnership, DNS Belgium would even take responsibility for redirecting the domain name to a gaming commission warning page if the site gets taken down.
This new protocol is in place effective immediately as of 15 December 2025.
Research conducted by the KSC and released this summer indicated that over a quarter of young adults, aged 18 to 30, gamble on illegal websites. It also revealed that, based on the testimony of the 1,000 participants, three of the top ten most recognised online gambling brands were unlicensed.
In September, Belgium formally began a six-year process of restructuring its entire gambling industry
