IBA appeals against German gambling regulator’s suspension of Bet3000 licence

IBA is hoping that the Halle Administrative Court will overturn the decision.

Germany.- Malta-based IBA Entertainment has lodged a lawsuit with Halle Administrative Court seeking to overturn the suspension of its German gambling licence for Bet3000. The federal regulator GGL withdrew the licence last month and ordered the closure of the Bet3000 website and 300 betting franchises in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia for “non-compliance with technical requirements”.

The GGL had concluded that Bet3000 was “vulnerable and unsustainable” on the grounds of failure to connect to the IT supervision system LUGAS. However, IBA says it faced technical problems due to a third-party service provider and that these were fixed before the GGL took action. It claims the enforcement action is unjustified and did not follow due process as outlined in Germany’s Fourth Interstate Treaty on Gambling, which requires a “reasonable deadline for compliance”.

IBA said the GGL’s decision is risking 1,500 jobs, including at betting agencies. It has requested an interim order to temporarily lift the licence suspension while legal proceedings advance.

Last month, the Higher Administrative Court in Saxony-Anhalt backed the GGL’s call for powers to act against streamers based abroad. The regulator has lodged a legal challenge related to a German streamer who was promoting unlicensed online slot games from outside of the country.

The court found that the GGL was right to intervene under the principle of territoriality in international law because “the content created in German is aimed at a German-speaking area. It is therefore mainly addressed to viewers who access the streaming content from Germany”.