Google's Trustpilot casino carousel mixes Belgian operators with questionable profiles and huge bonuses

A Google search for an online casino in Belgium can now produce something that looks remarkably similar to a casino recommendation list.

During a CasinoRating search for “casino en ligne” on Google Belgium, a prominent Trustpilot result appeared under the heading “Meilleures entreprises dans la catégorie Casino, Belgique” — or “Best companies in the Casino category, Belgium”.

Four cards were immediately visible: GoldenPlay Casino, Nouveaux Casinos en Ligne Belgique 2026, Starcasino.be and LuckyGem.

Each came with a logo, a Trustpilot rating and a review count. Some went considerably further and displayed large casino bonus offers directly in Google.

GoldenPlay Casino advertised €275 plus 50 free spins, while the LuckyGem listing promoted a striking 700% bonus up to €4,000 plus 700 free spins.

For a Belgian player unfamiliar with gambling regulation, the presentation could easily be interpreted as a selection of reputable or even approved online casinos.

It is neither.

The carousel illustrates a growing problem in the way online trust is created: Google gives highly visible space to Trustpilot data, while neither the star rating nor inclusion in a Belgian category proves that an operator is licensed to offer gambling in Belgium.

Trustpilot has long been used by consumers to assess online businesses, including casinos.

Until recently, a player generally had to visit the review platform itself to see rankings, ratings and company profiles.

Google is increasingly removing that extra step.

Its search results can display Trustpilot information through a visual carousel containing company logos, names, ratings and review numbers. The user can scroll through the companies without first visiting Trustpilot.

That distinction matters.

A Trustpilot profile displayed on Trustpilot is clearly part of a review website. A polished carousel appearing directly in Google search results can feel considerably more authoritative.

The visual language is familiar: company name, logo, stars and a category explicitly mentioning Belgium.

For many users, that may be enough to create an impression of legitimacy before they have checked anything else.

But Google visibility is not regulatory approval.

An earlier investigation into the same phenomenon found other names in Google's Trustpilot carousel, including Sankra, Wazamba and several established Belgian gambling brands.

Our more recent search produced a different first set of results.

The four immediately visible cards were:

GoldenPlay Casino, rated 5/5 in the screenshot with 99 reviews;

Nouveaux Casinos en Ligne Belgique 2026, also displayed with a 5/5 score and 97 reviews;

Starcasino.be, shown with a 4/5 rating and approximately 1,800 reviews;

and LuckyGem, displayed with a 3/5 score and 66 reviews.

This changing selection is important.

The carousel should therefore not be viewed as a stable ranking of particular casinos. The broader issue is that Google can repeatedly surface a mixture of businesses under a Belgian casino category without providing an obvious indication of their regulatory status.

The wording itself deserves attention.

A heading such as “Best companies in the Casino category, Belgium” can easily be understood by an ordinary user as a ranking of casinos operating legally in the Belgian market.

That is not what it means.

Trustpilot categories can contain very different types of businesses: licensed Belgian casinos, betting operators, gambling comparison websites, affiliates and foreign platforms.

Being categorised under “Casino” and “Belgium” does not mean that the Belgian Gaming Commission has licensed or approved that business.

Belgian players therefore face an important distinction:

Those are two entirely different things.

The latest carousel makes the issue even more striking because it does not merely display company ratings.

It also exposes Belgian Google users to casino promotions before they have even visited Trustpilot or the gambling website itself.

The GoldenPlay card visible in our search promoted an offer of €275 plus 50 free spins.

The LuckyGem card went much further, displaying “700% jusqu'à 4 000 € + 700 TG” — a 700% bonus worth up to €4,000 together with 700 free spins.

These are not subtle references to gambling.

They are direct acquisition-style offers designed to encourage players to sign up and deposit.

That is particularly notable in Belgium, where licensed operators face a highly restrictive regulatory framework around gambling advertising, promotions and player incentives.

The result is an uncomfortable contrast: operators complying with Belgian rules are heavily restricted in how they can market themselves, while large promotional offers from other profiles can still become visible in a mainstream Google search through Trustpilot.

The LuckyGem result deserves closer scrutiny.

The promotional name displayed in Google — “LuckyGem - 700% jusqu'à 4 000 € + 700 TG” — also appears on a claimed Trustpilot profile.

But that Trustpilot profile is linked to tijdloosnotes.nl, a domain that does not resemble the LuckyGem casino name at all.

Trustpilot currently categorises the profile not only under casino, bookmaker and gambling services, but also as a Map Store. Its contact information continues to use an email address associated with tijdloosnotes.nl.

The historical reviews make the mismatch even clearer.

Older reviews on the same profile discuss illustrated cards, personalised gifts, packaging and delivery — activities completely unrelated to online casino gambling.

The same Trustpilot profile now contains recent reviews discussing casino games, bonuses, deposits, withdrawals and account verification.

This does not prove by itself how or why the profile changed.

The domain could have changed ownership, the business could have been repurposed, or there may be another explanation.

But from a consumer-protection perspective, the important point is obvious: the history attached to a Trustpilot profile does not necessarily describe the business currently being promoted under that profile.

Another visible card raises a different question.

One of Google's first results was not presented as a familiar casino brand at all. It was called “Nouveaux Casinos en Ligne Belgique 2026”.

The wording resembles a search query or comparison-page title more than the name of a specific licensed casino.

Yet Google gives it essentially the same visual treatment as Starcasino.be: an image, company name, star rating and review count.

In our screenshot, it appeared with a perfect 5/5 score based on 97 reviews.

That makes it difficult for an ordinary user to understand what type of entity they are actually looking at.

Is it a licensed casino?

A casino comparison website?

An affiliate business?

A promotional landing page?

Google's carousel does not make that distinction obvious.

And when such a generic, highly search-optimised name is presented next to recognised gambling brands, the surrounding context can lend it additional credibility.

Starcasino.be provides a useful contrast.

Unlike the more questionable profiles, www.starcasino.be appears in the Belgian Gaming Commission's current list of A+ licensed casino websites, under licence dossier 8112.

Yet in Google's Trustpilot carousel, that regulatory distinction is invisible.

Starcasino.be appears in essentially the same card format as LuckyGem and “Nouveaux Casinos en Ligne Belgique 2026”.

Each receives a logo.

Each receives a rating.

Each receives a review count.

The result can create credibility by association.

A player may reasonably assume that if several businesses are grouped together under “Best companies in Casino, Belgium”, they have been subjected to a comparable level of scrutiny.

But one may be a Belgian-licensed operator while another may be a review profile linked to an apparently unrelated domain.

The Google interface does not explain that difference.

Much of the criticism surrounding Trustpilot and gambling has historically focused on the reliability of individual reviews.

Are they genuine?

Were they invited?

Do they accurately describe what happened?

Those remain valid questions, but the examples found here reveal another problem: the identity of the business profile itself can change.

A claimed Trustpilot profile may contain a company name, logo, description, business categories and website information that differ dramatically from its historical activity.

If old reviews remain attached to the same profile, users may be looking at an accumulated review history that spans entirely different businesses.

The LuckyGem example demonstrates this clearly.

Reviews about cards and personalised gifts coexist with casino-related reviews under a profile now branded around a 700% gambling bonus.

A star rating alone cannot communicate that history.

This does not appear to be an isolated phenomenon.

An earlier investigation identified several other profiles with similar inconsistencies.

One Trustpilot profile presented as Sankra Online Casino Belgium 2026 was linked to neetmilano.com. Older reviews attached to that profile discussed clothing, including sweatshirts, fabrics and design.

Another profile promoting Wazamba was associated with a Danish domain and reportedly remained categorised in a jewellery-related section despite presenting itself as an online casino.

A further profile for Westace Casino was linked to a domain referring to British airport transport, while historical reviews discussed airport transfers and punctuality.

None of these inconsistencies alone establishes why a profile changed identity.

But taken together, they reveal a recurring weakness: historical reviews can remain attached to profiles whose current commercial identity bears little resemblance to the business originally reviewed.

This is where Google's role becomes especially important.

Google does not necessarily create the underlying company profile or write the promotional wording itself.

Trustpilot provides the information associated with its pages, while claimed businesses can supply or modify elements of their profiles.

But Google gives that information a much larger stage.

Previously, a user had to actively visit Trustpilot and browse a gambling category or search for a casino.

Now the casino name, rating, review count and even a large welcome bonus can appear directly in ordinary Google search results.

The trust chain becomes increasingly indirect:

A player trusts Google.

Google presents information from Trustpilot.

Trustpilot presents information attached to a company profile.

That profile may have changed name, website, category or business activity over time.

At every stage, the user may assume that someone further up the chain has already checked the business.

That assumption can be dangerous.

For Belgian players, the most important lesson is straightforward.

A casino is not legal because it has five stars.

It is not legal because it has 100 or 1,000 reviews.

It is not legal because Trustpilot places it under Belgium.

And it is not legal because Google displays it prominently.

The relevant question is whether the exact domain being used by the operator appears among the websites authorised by the Belgian Gaming Commission.

Belgian online casino websites must be linked to the appropriate supplementary licence. The current official licence registers list the authorised domains separately, including A+ and B+ casino licences.

Checking the brand name alone is not enough.

Players should verify the actual web address before registering or depositing money.

The LuckyGem example shows why the domain matters so much.

Google displays a casino-style brand and a huge gambling bonus.

Trustpilot uses the same promotional identity.

But the profile is associated with tijdloosnotes.nl, whose historical reviews concern an entirely different type of business.

That should immediately encourage additional verification.

A familiar-looking casino name, polished logo or impressive Trustpilot rating cannot establish who operates the website or whether that domain has permission to target Belgian players.

The Belgian licence register is therefore a much more useful starting point than a consumer-review score.

There is an important difference between saying that Google or Trustpilot deliberately recommends an illegal casino and saying that their presentation can create a misleading impression.

The evidence supports the second conclusion.

Google's carousel is visually powerful.

Trustpilot's category name uses the word Belgium.

Star ratings suggest quality.

Review counts suggest experience.

Casino logos create recognisable brands.

And promotional wording can offer hundreds or even thousands of euros in bonuses.

Placed together, these signals can easily look like validation.

But none answers the most important regulatory question:

Trustpilot can provide information about customer experiences.

Google can help users find websites.

Neither should be used as proof that a gambling operator is authorised to accept Belgian players.

Before creating an account, CasinoRating recommends checking the exact casino domain against the licence information published by the Belgian Gaming Commission.

That step becomes even more important when a profile:

The latest Google carousel demonstrates just how fragile online signals of trust can become.

A licensed casino, a generic “Belgium 2026” profile and a gambling brand attached to a former stationery-related domain can all appear within the same polished search feature.

For players, that makes one rule more important than ever: