Gambling costs money again II

For a while, courts tended to suggest that someone who participated in games of chance not licensed or authorised in Germany would be entitled to a refund against the payment service providers. As a result, this in turn tightened the conditions with regard to numerous providers or startups and I had to write opinions or adjust terms and conditions, for example.

It all started with a very exciting ruling by the Regional Court of Koblenz(see this article), which followed the case law of the Federal Administrative Court in this respect.

In the summer of this year, the Munich Higher Regional Court took a different view(see this article) and now the Düsseldorf Regional Court has also followed this reasoning. Nor did the Landgericht Düsseldorf recognise that a credit card company was obliged to compare gambling offers with the ‘whitelist’ of the German Länder in order to determine whether the offer was illegal.

A credit card contract is to be qualified as a framework for payment services within the meaning of Paragraph 675 f I of the German Civil Code (BGB) and the institution is therefore obliged to pay off the cardholder’s liabilities to contract undertakings. If this obligation is complyed with, he is entitled to a reimbursement of expenses against the cardholder in accordance with Section 675 c para. 1, 670 BGB.

But:

First of all, it is therefore irrelevant that the transactions were for the purpose of illegal gambling. That has no effect on the effectiveness of the credit card contract and the applicant’s related claim. In principle, the cardholder can only object to any objections arising from the value ratio to the contracting company.

That could only be seen differently if the contracting entity acted abusively. However, such an obvious lack of value ratio was not apparent to the credit card company in the present case.

The Regional Court of Düsseldorf also agrees with the reasoning of the OLG Munich:

In addition, the purpose of protection is Section 1 of the GlüStV, to prevent the emergence of gambling addiction and gambling addiction and to direct the natural instinct of the population in an orderly and supervised manner and to ensure that, inter alia, the consequential and accompanying crime associated with gambling is prevented Is. That objective would be almost torpedoed if it were to be assumed that there was an nullity in the authorisation of payment transactions. Then the usually bona fide credit institution would be left sitting on the expenses and giving the player a free pass, so to speak, because the playful bet would be immediately reimbursed by the bank and the player would not take any financial losses or risks. . In these circumstances, the player could play gambling without any financial risk. On the contrary, it could involve a malicious participant in gambling, who ultimately commits a criminal offence under Paragraph 285 of the Criminal Code, of enshrining bona fide payment institutions for illegal activities.

I think this is a complete convince.

Author: Marian Härtel

Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.