Belgium’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the online games run by the National Lottery (Nationale Loterij) can no longer be exempt from the player-protection rules that bind private online gambling operators. In a judgment dated April 16 (arrest 45/2026), the court found it discriminatory that those games sit outside the EPIS self-exclusion database and the minimum playing age of 21 that apply elsewhere in the online market.
The products at the heart of the case are the operator’s online instant games, sold under the Woohoo brand. They are digital scratch cards and mini-games, with titles such as a Wheel of Fortune game and interactive bingo, played only on the lottery’s website and app rather than in shops. Stakes start at a few cents, the result is generated at once by computer, and the games are built for fast, repeated play.
The challenge was brought by private gambling and betting operators, who argued that the National Lottery’s online games closely resemble their own and should not be exempt from the rules that bind the rest of the market. That distinction carries legal weight because the Nationale Loterij operates under its own 2002 law and federal oversight rather than under the Gaming Commission that licenses private gambling. The same Woohoo games have also drawn a separate complaint from newsstand operators over their online-only sale, which led to the operator and its chief executive being referred to criminal court, a case in which the lottery maintains the games remain lotteries because the outcome is settled purely by chance.
The Constitutional Court concluded that these online lottery products carry risks comparable to other forms of online gambling. On that basis it held that exempting them from the self-exclusion register and the age-21 floor is unconstitutional.
Lawmakers now have until December 31, 2026 to bring the National Lottery’s online games under the same safeguards, with a separate December 31, 2027 deadline to extend self-exclusion checks to cafes and bars. The court otherwise upheld the EPIS system itself, which gambling operators must consult before allowing a customer to play, as constitutionally sound.