Key takeaways on betFIRST and GameArt's dice games
Deal: on 17 June 2021, GameArt announced five dice slots at betFIRST in Belgium.
Games: Piggy Holmes, African Sunset 2, Mariachi Fiesta, Nefertiti's Nile and Buffalo Spirit, all in dice slot versions.
Licence: betFIRST ran these games under a B+ licence from the Belgian Gaming Commission.
Dice: a B+ licence takes a gaming arcade online, which is why its slots wear dice faces.
Chance: the die is only a skin. Every result comes from a random number generator (RNG).
Belgian follow-up: GameArt's dice games reached Blitz via Gaming1 in May 2022, with Hawaiian Fruits as a sixth title, then PepperMill Casino in November 2023.
Takeover: Betsson announced its acquisition of betFIRST in June 2023, in a deal worth up to €120 million.
A+ casino: since February 2024, the operator has run an online casino under the A+ licence of Middelkerke Casino.
New name: betFIRST became Betsson in Belgium on 5 October 2026 and kept the same licences.
Market: from 2021 to 2025, online GGR from B+ sites fell by about 30%, while A+ online casinos grew by almost 70%.
Age: players must be 21 for casinos, gaming arcades and their websites, and for betting since 1 September 2024. The National Lottery remains open from 18.
betFIRST and GameArt: five dice slots for Belgium
On 17 June 2021, GameArt added five dice to its Belgian game. That day, the developer of HTML5 slot games announced that five of its titles were coming to betFIRST. The brand was one of the most established names in Belgian online gambling, a market GameArt already knew. These were no ordinary slots. They were dice slots, the Belgian cousins of the one-armed bandit, where cherries and red sevens give way to the faces of a die. Five years on, betFIRST trades under another name and the market looks very different. Yet the betFIRST GameArt deal still has one rare quality. Better than any legal treatise, it answers a question many players ask without ever putting it into words: why does Belgium play with dice when the rest of Europe spins reels?
The 17 June 2021 deal in three facts
The press release runs to just a few lines, but it reads like a hand of cards: every card counts, and so does the order. The first fact is commercial. Five GameArt dice slots went live on betFIRST.be as soon as the deal was announced. The second is regulatory: the operator runs these games under a B+ licence from the Belgian Gaming Commission. This licence lets it offer dice slots, dice games and online roulette, among others. The third sounds like a promise. GameArt planned to bring more dice games to the country's other B+ operators through the Gaming1 platform.
Both parties chose their words carefully. Almir Kudic, the studio's Head of Commercials, speaks of a “bespoke selection” in the press release published by GameArt. He adds that “the popularity of dice games in Belgium is unique in Europe”. Daphne Bal, Head of Brand and Content at betFIRST, states her aim of offering players “the best possible dice slots on the market”. She also points to the great response to GameArt's first releases.
After years of dissecting announcements like this one, I have learned to look for the word that weighs more than the rest. Here, it is “bespoke”. The studio does not hand over its game library wholesale. It tailors it to a market that sets its own rules of play. That reflex, which shows up deal after deal in the studio's news feed, says more about its method than any slogan. And in Belgium, those rules take a very particular shape: the shape of a die.
Five faces out of six
The five chosen titles form a small travel gallery, from a detective story to the Nile Delta. For Belgium, each one puts on a dice costume:
Piggy Holmes: a pig detective, in an open nod to Sherlock Holmes.
African Sunset 2: the savannah at sundown, a sequel to African Sunset.
Mariachi Fiesta: a Mexican party where the trumpets set the tempo.
Nefertiti's Nile: the Egypt of queens and the great river, an evergreen theme in gaming halls.
Buffalo Spirit: the Great Plains of North America and the hulking outline of the bison.
Five titles, then. But a die has six faces, and the sixth would soon show itself. We will come back to it a little further on.
Why does Belgium play with dice instead of reels?
It all starts with the architecture of Belgian licences, a house where every room has its own key. The A licence opens the door to casinos, the B licence to gaming arcades and the F1 licence to organising bets. Online, no key can be cut from scratch. Only an operator already established in the physical world can obtain its digital extension, marked with a “+”. The law is clear about its scope: this supplementary licence may only cover games of the same nature as those offered in the real world. That principle of anchoring online play to a physical venue is what makes the Belgian model unique.
The regulator spells it out for gaming arcades: only a B licence holder can apply for a B+ licence. Its page on B and B+ licences also lists the documents required. These include a detailed list of the games and of the suppliers holding an E licence that are linked to them. Applicants must also provide a document guaranteeing the fairness of the games, such as RNG certificates.
Hence the costume. A B+ site is the online extension of a gaming arcade, not a casino. In practice, classic reel slots remain the preserve of casinos and their A+ sites. B+ operators offer dice versions instead, in which every symbol becomes the face of a die. The game itself does not change one bit: a stake, a draw handled by a random number generator, a winning or losing combination.
Keep this picture in mind, as it will spare you plenty of superstitions. The die in a dice slot is not thrown. It is displayed. It has neither memory nor mood, and nothing the player does decides which face comes up.
Dice slots, dice games, roulette, blackjack, poker
48
F1+
F1 licence (betting operator)
Betting
22
There are nine A+ licences, as many as there are land-based casinos authorised in Belgium. Each of these venues has become a coveted gateway for anyone who wants to open an online casino. You will soon see that betFIRST found its own gateway on the coast.
GameArt's six-faced die in Belgium
The sixth face appeared eleven months later. On 16 May 2022, GameArt announced the launch of its games on Blitz through Gaming1. The 2021 promise had come true, this time with six dice slots: the five betFIRST titles, joined by Hawaiian Fruits and its tropical fruit. The die was complete.
The same sextet then moved to a new stage. In November 2023, it settled in at PepperMill Casino, a Belgian casino specialising in dice games. This time, six table games came along, from blackjack to baccarat. Five more titles were announced for the following week.
The run did not stop there. It continued in September 2024 with the arrival at Madison Casino, the third Belgian operator to welcome the studio in three years, not counting betFIRST. In this market, GameArt is no longer a passing visitor.
Put together, these deals reveal a method I like at GameArt: few titles, always the same ones, replayed from one operator to the next like the repertoire of an orchestra on tour. Nothing spectacular. But in a market where players like to find their bearings from one venue to the next, I think the bet is smarter than it looks.
From betFIRST to Betsson: the timeline of a pioneering brand
The brand that welcomed the five dice of 2021 left Belgian screens on 5 October 2026. Its story reads like a game played in five throws:
2011: betFIRST becomes the first Belgian operator to obtain an F1+ online betting licence.
17 June 2021: five GameArt dice slots arrive on betFIRST under a B+ licence.
June 2023: Betsson announces its takeover of betFIRST, in a deal worth up to €120 million.
February 2024: the operator opens an online casino under the A+ licence of Middelkerke Casino, owned by Groupe Partouche, a launch reported by iGaming Business.
5 October 2026: betFIRST becomes Betsson in Belgium and keeps its licences.
I admit to a touch of nostalgia as this name fades out. betFIRST carried its pioneering ambition in its very name, and it lived up to it as early as 2011. Yet the move is no whim. In Belgium, growth now lies with A+ casinos. The operator walked into that room through the door of Middelkerke Casino, on the Belgian coast. The regulator's figures tell the same story, in a colder voice.
What the Belgian Gaming Commission's figures reveal
To measure the weight of a segment, one indicator is enough: gross gaming revenue (GGR), meaning the stakes collected minus the winnings paid out to players. On that front, the curves for dice and reels drift further apart every year, like two players who no longer bet at the same table.
Between 2021 and 2025, online GGR from B+ gaming arcade sites fell from €237.9 million to €165.8 million. That is a drop of around 30%. Over the same period, A+ online casinos jumped from €326.4 million to €554.1 million, an increase of almost 70%. In 2025, for every euro of GGR generated by B+ sites, A+ casinos generated more than three.
The paradox is worth stressing. With 48 B+ licences against 9 A+ licences at the end of 2025, dice have plenty of doors and reels very few. Yet it is the reels that bring in most of the money. On the player side, the minimum age of 21 already applied to casinos, gaming arcades and online games other than betting. Since 1 September 2024, it has covered betting too. Only National Lottery games remain open from the age of 18.
Dice slots: the savvy player's checklist
Do you live in Belgium and find the format intriguing? Before your first bet, take five minutes to run these checks. They apply to dice and reels alike.
Licence: check that the site's address appears on the list of licence holders published by the Belgian Gaming Commission, under A+ or B+. A site missing from that list operates outside Belgian rules, even if it speaks your language and flies the Belgian tricolour.
Chance: don't look for a system. The die is an animation driven by a random draw algorithm, with no memory and no “hot streak”.
Game rules: open the information screen before you place a bet. You will find the value of each combination there and, when it is shown, the theoretical return to player (RTP).
Budget: the standard deposit limit is €200 per week per site, as the Legal 500 guide to Belgian gambling law points out. You can lower it straight away, whereas raising it is subject to strict conditions. In my view, it is a healthy safeguard.
Exclusion: if gambling starts spilling over into the rest of your life, the EPIS register lets you exclude yourself, and online operators must check it before accepting a player.
Outside Belgium, treat this checklist as a method rather than a rulebook. Every country sets its own rules, so start with your own regulator's list of licensed sites.
The die faces the Betsson era
What will happen to the dice under the Betsson banner? In the press release carried by European Gaming, the group promises its Belgian customers the same products as before, exclusive games and a live casino in its own colours. Will GameArt's dice slots keep their place there, or fade behind the reels of the A+ casino? I don't have the answer. The figures argue for reels and Belgian players' habits for dice. And the history of gambling has often proved hasty prophets wrong.
Either way, this small deal from 2021 holds a lesson I find precious. It shows that a legal rule can shape the look of an entire market, to the point of turning cherries into the faces of a die. Mallarmé wrote it in 1897: “A throw of the dice will never abolish chance.” On Belgian screens, the line can be taken literally. The scenery changes, the draw stays the same, and that is probably the most useful lesson to keep in mind before betting a single euro.
FAQ on the betFIRST and GameArt deal
What is a dice slot?
A slot machine whose symbols take the form of dice faces. It works like a classic slot: a random number generator decides every result.
Why do Belgian online casinos offer dice games?
Because sites with a B+ licence are the online extension of gaming arcades, not casinos. They therefore offer dice versions, while classic slots are in practice the preserve of casinos holding an A+ licence.
Which GameArt games arrived at betFIRST in 2021?
Five dice slots: Piggy Holmes, African Sunset 2, Mariachi Fiesta, Nefertiti's Nile and Buffalo Spirit. GameArt announced their arrival on 17 June 2021.
What is the difference between an A+ and a B+ licence?
An A+ licence allows a land-based casino to run an online casino. A B+ licence is the online extension of a gaming arcade that holds a B licence. At the end of 2025, Belgium had 9 A+ licences and 48 B+ licences.
Does betFIRST still exist?
No. Bought by Betsson in 2023, betFIRST opened an online casino under the A+ licence of Middelkerke Casino in February 2024. It then took the Betsson name in Belgium on 5 October 2026, with the same licences.
Are GameArt's dice games offered by other Belgian operators?
Yes. They arrived on Blitz via the Gaming1 platform in May 2022, with a sixth title, Hawaiian Fruits, then at PepperMill Casino in November 2023.
Does the die change your chances of winning?
No. The die is just a graphic skin. The result depends on a random number generator, and no method can predict the next face.
How big is the online casino market in Belgium?
In 2025, online casinos with an A+ licence generated €554.1 million in gross gaming revenue, compared with €165.8 million for B+ sites, according to the Belgian Gaming Commission.
How old do you have to be to play dice slots in Belgium?
21. This limit applies to casinos, gaming arcades and their websites. Since 1 September 2024, it has also covered betting. Only National Lottery games remain open from the age of 18.
How can you check that a Belgian online casino is legal?
Look at the list of licence holders published by the Belgian Gaming Commission. A legal site appears there with an A+ or B+ licence. The regulator also keeps a blacklist of unauthorised sites.
