Flemish Member of Parliament Maurits Vande Reyde (Open Vld) wants the Flemish income from the National Lottery to be used for the fight against gambling addiction. Flanders received a record amount of 34.8 million euros from the National Lottery in 2021, according to figures he requested. In total, the Lottery paid out more than 50 million euros to all governments in our country.
According to Vande Reyde, the income is a disguised tax, which is mainly paid by people in a socially vulnerable position. “We should start the debate in parliament whether this is still current,” he says. “Essentially, the National Lottery is a government gambling monopoly that feeds on the gambling behavior of the most vulnerable in our society and whose revenues then largely go to the government.”
He wants the income to be used in future for the prevention and combating of gambling addiction. “Every year, hundreds of thousands of cases of problematic gambling are reported in our country,” said the liberal. “More than 350,000 Belgians were excluded from gambling. That is the largest number ever. According to experts, 5 percent of Belgian adults are problem or risk gamblers. That equates to 467,081 people. The consequences of this are considerable. Financial and emotional Gambling addicts are in a similar situation to drug or alcohol dependence.”
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