- State Treaty on Gambling continues to cause uncertainty with regard to repayment claims by customers from Germany.
- Legal issues relating to gambling and blockchain remain controversial and difficult to clarify for clients.
- GGL has suffered setbacks in the fight against illegal gambling, particularly in the blocking of websites.
- Courts in Germany recognize the unlawfulness of GGL 's blocking of illegal gambling websites.
- The IP blocking measure is called into question, as access providers are not considered responsible service providers.
- A uniform approach by the courts could mean the end of the IP block for the GGL.
- Combating the black market for online sports betting and gambling has been the task of the GGL since July 1, 2021.
Despite the new State Gambling Treaty and a trend in recent years for courts to affirm repayment claims by customers of gambling providers, the question of how providers abroad (whether licensed in Malta or not, for example) should deal with German customers remains difficult to answer.
This also includes many open legal questions, with those that I have to answer for clients in the area of blockchain and gambling in particular, of course.
But the Joint Gambling Authority of the Federal States (GGL) is not making much progress either and has had to accept a number of setbacks in the fight against illegal gambling in recent months. For example, in its ruling of February 3 (3 L 2261/22), the Düsseldorf Administrative Court declared GGL’s orders to telecommunications service providers to block illegal gambling websites to be unlawful. A few days earlier, the Higher Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palatinate (Ref.: 6 B 11175/22.OVG) had already ruled that there was no legal basis for the closures. The Berlin Administrative Court (4 L 505/22) has just agreed with this and consequently ordered the suspensive effect of the Internet provider’s action against the GGL’s blocking order.
