The treaty will bring significant legal innovations for the online sports betting and casino sector. Most importantly it will finally regularize the online poker and online slot verticals and address the concerning grey market issues which have been a threat to future growth. These upcoming important changes surely pose one very important question: Can the German betting industry become one of the largest in Europe?

To answer such a question, we need to dive deeper into both the technological infrastructure and player statistics.

Germany has a population of 83 million people, making it the largest in Europe. 78.81 million of them are internet users, which indicates internet penetration equivalent to 94% of the population. 95.4% of them, from age 16 to 64 own a smartphone device, whereas 83.8% of them own a laptop or desktop computer. The average daily time spent using the internet in Germany is 5 hours and 26 minutes, which is quite high compared to the 5 hours and 37 minutes of average daily time spent on the internet in France.

In terms of download speed for both mobile and fixed internet connections, Germany has incredible results, with 48.86 MBPS average download speed on the mobile internet registering 39.4% yearly increase of the speed, and average of 169 MBPS for the fixed internet connections with 37.7% increase every year. On another note, taking into perspective Germany’s population, the country has mobile connectivity of 134.7% since there are currently 112 million mobile connections.

 A report about the German betting industry forecasts that up to 2024 the market is expected to grow to €18.2 Bn with a CAGR of +6.5%. However, such a forecast depends on the future development of the pandemic situation.

The German Betting Association (DSWV) published data and statistics which paint a good picture of just how popular the sports betting vertical is. The total turnover in 2014 amounted to €4.52 billion, which was more than doubled in 2019 when it reached €9.28 billion. As expected, this number dipped by 16% to €7.79 billion in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but on the other hand, this showcased the resilient nature of the German betting industry. To further display the exponential growth in interest for the sports betting vertical, throughout 2017-2019 the amount of money wagered by bettors grew by 23.4% to €9.43 Bn.

Furthermore, the consulting and research provider Goldmedia expects the revenues for the German online casino vertical to grow from €2.2 billion in 2019 to €3.3 billion in 2024. If one takes into account the fact that approximately 20% of Germans participate in gambling such forecasts are very likely to come true.

Online slots and casino games along with online betting have been engaged on a very high level by the German players. In a survey by Goldmedia, 12% of the participants were playing online slots daily, and 32% answered they play online slots weekly.

The same type of engagement goes for online sports betting, with 15% of participants wagering daily, whilst another 29% stated they place bets weekly.

Online lotteries, online casino games and online poker have also been highly favored by the German players, with responders stating that 9%, 8% and 12% of them participate in these games daily.

On average, the vast majority of the players made monthly deposits of less than €100 in order to play online slots or online casino games. On a more interesting note, another 19% of players answered the make monthly deposits ranging from €101 and €300.

In terms of devices, 65% of the participants used smartphones to play online slots, 46% of them used laptops, the usage of Desktop computer was sitting at 36% whilst tablet devices were amongst the least used with 23%.

To sum it all up, with this kind of technological infrastructure, high levels of player engagement on sports betting and online casino verticals and a new legal framework that will enable access to content players have not had before, the German Betting Industry is set to go nowhere, but at the very top in Europe.