Martin Arendts, M.B.L.-HSG, attorney-at-law for Arendts Anwälte, provides an update on licensing in Germany.

Martin Arendts

GERMANY, like other EU member states, recently decided to abandon the state monopoly system with regard to sports betting, and to start a licensing procedure (as well as to tax sports betting with a five per cent turnover tax on wagers).

The new Interstate Treaty on Gambling, effective as of July 1, 20121 , contains an experimentation clause in section 10a which allows for up to 20 sports betting licences. However, after more than a year, no licences have been granted. It is also quite obvious that this licensing procedure does not fulfil the criteria of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). So, the Administrative Court of Wiesbaden described the procedure as non-transparent.

Experimentation clause: up to 20 sports betting licences

As the old Interstate Treaty on Gambling of 2008 turned out to be legally questionable after the CJEU decisions of September 8, 2010, on the German sports betting referral cases (Stoss, Carmen Media Group2 and Winner Wetten), the German states decided to open up the market only for sports betting (in order to keep the state monopoly on other forms of gambling, especially lotteries which generate a considerable parts of the state income). Therefore, the Treaty’s lack of consideration of online poker and casino games has been heavily criticised.

The Hessian Ministry of the Interior was appointed to organise the sports betting licensing procedure and to issue the licences on behalf of the newly created gambling board (Glücksspielkollegium), which consists of 16 members (one for each state). The tender for the 20 sports betting licences was published in the Official Journal on August 8, 2012. After the second step, however, the procedure seemed to have stopped in spring 2013. In a further public tender for a law firm, Hessian Ministry of the Interior recently declared that it expected up to 80 court proceedings, involving both unsuccessful applicants and licence-holders3.

Read the full article in the current issue of InterGaming Law.