Betano ordered to repay customer after breaching German loss limit
A court has ordered Betano to refund the customer’s losses.
Germany.- The District Court of Ludwigslust, near Hamburg, has ordered Kaizen Gaming’s Betano to refund player losses after the operator allowed the player to breach Germany’s €1,000 monthly loss limit. The operator must repay €4,380.
The player in question lost €5,380 on Betano’s sportsbook between February 20 and March 4 last year, more than five times the monthly loss limit in Germany. Only a few select players are allowed to apply to raise the loss limit.
At the time of the incident, the monthly loss limit applied per operator, but it has since been expanded to cover all of a player’s spending across multiple operators. The player’s lawyer, István Cocron, also said that his client had also signed up to Germany’s OASIS self-exclusion system.
He said: “The provider allowed our client to bet more than the permitted €1,000 per month and therefore violated the gaming licence granted to it. We have therefore reclaimed the stakes that went beyond the limit of €1,000.”
The lawyer suggested similar cases against gaming operators may emerge.
He said: “For both online sports betting and online gaming, there was a far-reaching ban in Germany until July 1, 2021, and there is a good chance of winning back stakes that were lost.”
In April, in the first decision of its kind, Frankfurt’s Higher Regional Court ordered an unnamed online casino operator to return €12,000 to a player who lost the funds playing on the operator’s offering before Germany legalised online gaming. The Oberlandesgericht has since followed up with a similar judgement ordering an operator to return €26,000 to another player.
Again, the court’s ruling was to uphold a decision made by a lower-level regional court in Giesson, Hesse. In September, the regional court had found in favour of the player, who had lost the funds playing via a Gibraltar-based German-language online casino between January 2018 and February 2020.
Meanwhile, all 33 sports betting licensees in Germany have lodged lawsuits against the state of Hesse to challenge the market’s regulations.
The state will be represented by the Regional Council of Darmstadt, which confirmed that “All holders of permits for both land-based and online sports betting” had filed lawsuits. The operators complain that the market conditions, which limit in-play betting to match winners and total goals, favour unlicensed offshore competitors.
OPAP divests stake in Betano
In April, the Greek gambling group OPAP SA informed investors that it had divested its 36.75 per cent stake in Betano to Rubidium Holding, an indirect investment vehicle fully owned by Allwyn Entertainment.
OPAP was to receive €50m in cash on a debt-free basis upfront and incentives on Betano’s performance for the next three financial years. The divestment depends on OPAP receiving regulatory approval from the Greek regulator, the Hellenic Markets Authority.
