Update 09 Feb: Since publication of this story, Chilipoker CEO Alexandre Dreyfus has communicated to pokerfuse that the inclusion of Chilipoker.com on the blacklist was in error as Chilipoker does not accept players from Belgium. He expects to be removed from the published list within the next 72 hours. Pokerfuse will follow up on this story when the blacklist is updated.
The Belgium Gaming Commission has published the first version of its online gaming “blacklist,” which details domain names the commission believes to be operating outside of new Belgian gaming regulations. The four largest internet service providers in Belgium are expected to prevent customers from accessing domain names on the list either through DNS or IP blocking.
Ten domains of online casinos, bingo sites and poker rooms are on the list published today, including 888.com, independent poker room EverestPoker.be, and iPoker skins Chilipoker.com and TitanPoker.be.
In January, the first Belgian “whitelist” was published, that granted provisional licenses to certain operators, permitting them to continue offering their services to Belgian customers. Poker rooms on the list include PokerStars.be, French independent Partouche.be, and Belgian independent GoldenPalace.be operating under the GPWin.be domain.
The whitelist is a temporary measure ahead of the first licenses being granted. PokerStars announced on its blog today that it had been issued one of the licenses, although official confirmation of license recipients has been announced by the Gaming Commission.
On the initial version of the whitelist published in late December, Casino770 was present, and representatives told pokerfuse that sister site Poker770 was also explicitly permitted to continue operations. However, a more recent whitelist published this month has neither Casino770 nor Poker770 domains listed.
One notable exception on both the white and blacklist are any bwin.party domains, whose PartyPoker online poker room is the second largest internationally and runs regulated online poker rooms in France and Italy. Although the company had previously stated publicly that it felt the Belgian gaming regulation was contrary to EU law, it recently announced that it would too be applying for a license and was hopefully it would be in the first wave of licenses granted.
