Belgium’s Gaming Commission took the Malta-based international gambling website Unibet.com to task on Wednesday over allowing gamblers to try their luck and wager on when the country’s political crisis might come to an end.

The commission said it filed a complaint with the Brussels prosecutor’s office claiming Unibet’s game of chance on when Belgium’s deeply divided political leaders will form a new national government was illegal under national law.

“Gambling on a date when a new government is formed is illegal,” Marc Callu from the Gaming Commission told VRT radio.

Callu said that under Belgian law people are not allowed to wager on such events, with exceptions given to sports games or horse races.

Unibet’s Internet site offers gamblers 25 to 1 odds for those who think a new government will be formed before 1 October, dropping to 2.5 to 1 if they pick a date after 1 December 2007.

Similarly, on-line gamblers can bet on who will be picked as next prime minister from a list of seven political leaders including outgoing Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, Yves Leterme, the leader of the Flemish Christian Democrat Party, which got the most seats in the 10 June election, and Belgium’s EU Commissioner Louis Michel.

An official from Unibet Group PLC, which operates game of chance websites across many EU countries and elsewhere, said they were doing nothing wrong under Belgian or European Union regulations.

“Unibet certainly thinks it is unfair,” said Christoph de Preter, legal counsel for Unibet’s Belgian and EU operations, adding the Malta-based company “will continue to offer its bets on the Internet, including the bet on the formation of the new government, as it has done over the last years.”

De Preter said it was not the first time Belgian gaming authorities had threatened legal action and felt it was unlikely Wednesday’s perceived crackdown came as a reaction to the ongoing political crisis in the country.

He said Unibet’s offering games of chance on political events was not illegal under EU-wide gambling rules.

The company also listed similar bets on Poland’s October elections and a vote planned in Norway in 2009 and which Democratic or Republican candidates would win the primaries in the United States.

Political efforts to form a government remain deadlocked four months after national elections over a dispute between the country’s Dutch and French-speaking halves, questioning whether the country can survive the current crisis intact.

Coalition talks collapsed over Flemish calls for more self-rule and the redrawing of a bilingual, Brussels-area voting district.