Belgium’s online gambling operators are mulling a legal challenge of the country’s new €500 deposit limit, as their business is already down nearly two-fifths due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last week, the Belgian Association of Gambling Operators (BAGO) publicly expressed its displeasure with the Belgian Gambling Commission’s decision to impose a €500 weekly deposit limit per customer across all Belgian-licensed sites. The BGC justified the move by saying gamblers need extra help resisting temptation during their COVID-19 self-isolation.

BAGO members plan to challenge this new limit, which can be lowered even further at a customer’s request but cannot be lifted under any circumstances, regardless of whether a customer can demonstrate sufficient financial capacity to justify higher spending.

This type of upper-limit wiggle room was supposed to be permissible under the old rules, provided a customer’s finances were verified by the National Bank of Belgium’s Central Individual Credit Center. But even under those rules, any increase request wouldn’t take effect for three days to ensure gamblers couldn’t ‘chase’ their losses.