The Commission des jeux de hasard (CJH), the Belgian gambling regulator, has issued a severe public warning that chronic underfunding and restrictive government control are paralyzing its operational capacity, thereby jeopardizing its ability to effectively oversee the country’s rapidly expanding gaming sector.
In a sharply worded advisory opinion published on October 24, 2025, the CJH urgently petitioned lawmakers to grant it full operational autonomy over its staffing and financing to restore necessary regulatory effectiveness.
The advisory opinion, which was adopted by a narrow five-to-four majority, was submitted in response to a draft government law aimed at strengthening player protection.
While the CJH endorsed the law’s intent, it cautioned that the new player protection measures would be meaningless without structural reform. The regulator emphasized that bureaucratic obstacles under the Ministry of Justice have effectively paralyzed its hiring processes.
This has resulted in the CJH operating with fewer staff than it had 15 years ago, despite having a far broader modern regulatory mandate.
As of July 2025, the CJH employed only 32.8 full-time staff, down from 39.3 in 2023, while estimating it needs approximately 80 employees to fulfill its legal duties.
The recruitment delays are “excessively long,” ranging from five months for a control officer to two and a half years for a data analyst, creating a situation the Commission describes as “unsustainable.”
International comparisons underline the severity of the staffing crisis: Belgium operates with fewer than 40 staff, while regulators in similarly sized jurisdictions employ significantly more, Denmark has 130, France over 80, Germany 145, and the UK 413.
The CJH rejected the draft law’s proposal to fix staff numbers in law, arguing that quotas would simply “freeze staffing”and block future expansion.
Instead, it urged lawmakers to grant it the autonomy to conduct its own personnel policy and manage its own budget. The Commission noted that although it has a dedicated fund of over €50 million from annual operator contributions, government rules prohibit it from utilizing these funds for salaries and ongoing expenses.
The Belgian gambling regulator warned that as long as its budget and staffing remain subject to ministerial control, its independence remains “largely theoretical.”
The warning comes amid growing public concern over gambling-related harms, with a study finding that 28% of Belgians aged 18–30 had used unlicensed sites despite new restrictions.
Commission des jeux de hasard (CJH):
It is necessary that the commission, as an independent regulator, can not only strategically determine its staffing needs but also implement them operationally. Only in this way can it achieve a personnel level comparable, in proportion, to regulators in neighboring countries with similar missions.
