ITH Poker Forum

[Fenris78]

After quite some time has passed the European Union's highest court has declared the German Gaming Monopoly as unjustified:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-08/german-gaming-monopoly-is-unjustified-eu-court-says.html

The court didn't declare what the German government had to change, only that the current situation is not ok according to European law. Also, internet poker isn't really discussed here, it's exclusively about sports betting, but since the sports betting industry usually offers other games like poker as well, this means that legalizing international sports betting companies to be run in Germany would make playing online poker legal again as well. The cout decided that the government is not allowed to block European gaming companies like Betfair or Bwin while running huge advertising campaigns for government regulated gambling like the lottery. Also privately run slot machines and casions are legal, but they carry a much bigger risk of gambling addiction that sports betting, so the ban of international sports bettors with the reasoning of preventing gambling addiction is made invalid.

Now there are basically two possibilites:

1) The gaming industry gets reduced drastically. Slot machines aren't allowed anymore in most public places and the government regulated casinos have to reduce their advertising activities significantly. This would probably also mean the end for many small local gambling halls that live mostly on their slot machines. Also, the government run gambling offers such as the national lottery cuts down advertising a lot.

2) The market gets opened and allows European companies to offer internet gambling in Germany. This would probably mean legalization of online poker (as long as the company resides in Europe) as well.

I don't know how much time they have to react to the verdict, but I guess the government will stall as long as possible. Maybe we will see some changes taking action in the spring of 2012?