Germany’s licensed gambling operators call for clarity in legislative amendments
Operators also hope the German gambling regulator will gain powers for IP blocking.
Germany.- The online casino trade association Deutscher Online Casinoverband (DOCV) has called for German legislators to provide clarity and new regulatory enforcement powers in an expected update to the 2021 Fourth Interstate Treaty on Gambling. In a webinar on the upcoming legislative reforms, DOCV vice president Simon Priglinger-Simader suggested the amendments should grant the national gaming regulator, the GGL, the power for IP blocking while also adjusting rules for ionline casino deposit and stakes limits.
Almost a year ago, the GGL announced a comprehensive market evaluation for completion in 2026. This is expected to inform updates to the legislation that regulated online gambling in Germany in 2021. The regulator is putting a particular focus on the impact of advertising, but operators also hope for clarity on gambling limitations.
The DOCV argues that stake and deposit limits currently cause confusion and make the licensed sector uncompetitive. There’s a €1 stake limit for online slots plus an industry-wide deposit limit of €1,000 per player across all platforms. Players can request increases, but the regulations say this must be analysed according to “economic capacity”. This is where things become unclear, as operators argue that a measurement of economic capacity has not been defined.
Operators therefore hope that the updated Interstate Treaty will clearly define affordability, or economic capacity, and that the definition will allow room for operators to be able to offer higher stakes and deposits to players who can afford them. Priglinger-Simader has suggested that the GGL is inclined to support measures that would increase the competitiveness of the regulated market and possibly move away from blanket stake limits to focus instead on affordability for individual players. This could involve allowing individual players to request higher stakes.
He said: “The aim is to get a sustainable model that provides a long-term plan and security. The latest update we got from the supervisory board meeting in May was that the states are now looking to find the definition for the term affordability.”
Finally, operators are hopeful that the GGL will be granted powers for IP blocking against unlicensed gambling sites. The Federal Administrative Court has taken the view that there is currently no legal basis to allow this as an enforcement measure. The GGL said in February that the decision wouldn’t affect its enforcement strategy since it now directs orders to hosting providers not IP services, but an amendment would give it another tool to help defend the licensed market.
