A webinar on Germany and its new regulatory regime held last week

This webinar, sponsored by Greentube, was held last May 6th. Speakers were: Rolf Karpenstein, Blume Ritscher Nguyen Rega, Georg Gubo, CEO of Greentube, Dr Wulf Hambach, Hambach & Hambach law firm.

Germany hasn´t a proper iGaming regulation. While sports betting licenses have been available in few states only, the industry has been advocating an introduction of online sports book and casino for a number of years. That is now happening, although as often happens regulatory regime comes with a number of restrictions that sometimes put in question viability of the market for some operators.

Karpenstein said: "It is a German problem. We still have a monopoly for lotteries and for sportsbetting. And it can only be only opened a little bit. It is an experiment to have a concession for a year. We had several successes, specially in Luxembourg in 2016, in which we had a little opening.  A smaller company from Austria asked me for some support, and this time we won".

Gubo said: "We have a strong heritage in the land based German market. We bring content delivery. Germany was one of our main markets. We now operate on a BtoC level. We are very happy to get a kind of regulation. We are still present in the German market. We fight for a market regulation to open."

SECTION 1: The status quo:
-20 license cap removed
-5% tax on turnover imposed on licenses
-1,000 euro monthly spending limit set for all players
-In-play betting prohibited
-No licenses awarded

SECTION 2: The current situation:
-Third-amended state: Treaty ratified by Minister-Presidents of Lander in March 2019
-Negative  Ec Opinion issued in August 2019
-RP Darmstadt opens licensing process from 2, January, 2020
-New treaty agreed in January 2020
-Legal challenge brings sportsbook licensing process to a halt in April 2020

SECTION 3: What's next?
-New concession ratified in March 2020
-Treaty opens up to the market to online casino and poker
-But slot stakes limite to 1 euro per spin
-Spins to average 5 seconds
-No jackpots or autoplay functionality
-Sports betting restrictions remain
-1000 euros spending limit extended across all products
-Lander have veto table games-and option to grant lotteries monopoly

Hambach said: "European Commission has to ratify the proceedings. I can only say that next week there might be some interesting outcome from the court ruling; open your eyes for that. You can make difference between legal and illegal. European Court guidelines."

He then added: "We have online gambling, different regulation in Germany and contrast among the other member states in Europe, on online gambling regulation. There is a different mindset in different states, on how they approach regulation."