On the 26th of February 2004, "Der Spiegel" reported in its online edition that Real Madrid and some of its stars, e.g., Luis Figo, Zinedin Zidane and David Beckham had lodged multi-million euro claims against seven well known international sports betting providers. Why: Allegedly, many bookmakers had advertised their online offers on their online-sites using photos of Beckham, Ronaldo and other Real stars without obtaining permission from the Spanish football record holders, Real Madrid, or its stars.

The Sport Committee of the Lower House of the German Parliament (Bundestag), the Berlin General Public Prosecutor and the European Parliament are strongly critical of the State Sports Betting System. The Croatian who was accused in the course of the referee scandal in German football concerning Robert Hoyzer is said to have received no less than 3.84 million euro from his betting business with the state sports betting provider ODDSET.

The Federal Administrative Court decided on the 9th of March 2005 that a trade amusement licence may be necessary to operate an “internet café” (case no. 6 C 11.04). Under Art. 33i of the Trade, Commerce and Industry Regulation Act (Gewerbeordnung, GewO), a licence of this type is required by anyone who wishes to operate an amusement arcade or a similar business which predominately supplies gaming equipment or games with profit potential or commercial amusement games without profit potential

Part 1 dealt with International Private Law issues. Under German Law, legally binding consumer regulations cannot be waived. In part 2, I will outline the (relatively complex) principles behind an AGB examination under German law as well as the individual examination steps and criteria. From a legal point of view, betting regulations, particularly gambling terms and conditions, are considered – irrespective of how they are labelled – to be “AGB”s (Allgemeine Geschäftsbestimmungen, standard terms and conditions of business), i.e., contract conditions put forward by one side for use in a multiplicity (according to jurisprudence, at least 3) of instances.

The “million dollar question” for many who are directly affected by this decision is: What will the Federal Constitutional Court decide? Ultimately, one can only speculate on this as the Federal Constitutional Court has clearly political considerations in mind based on its personnel composition as well as its conceptual formulation (in particular the billion euro state revenue). Because of this, a full liberalisation cannot seriously be expected.

Espelkamp/Freiburg/Warschau. The Star-Kick scored at the meeting of the "European Robotics Research Network" (EURON): the high-tech goal kick machine from Espelkamp came top and was thus awarded the "Technology Transfer Award" in Warsaw.

The State gambling providers are not just trying to protect their monopoly position by bringing competition proceedings against foreign and German gambling providers (in particular, commercial gambling agents) but they are also trademarking common terms such as “Lotto” and “Toto”. In this way, the state providers, in the form of the cartel, the Deutscher Lotto- und Toto-Block, sought (and continue to seek) to prohibit the use of all combinations with these generic terms (e.g., “freelotto”).

Alongside competition and trademark problems, civil law issues have begun to play an increasing role since a liberalisation of the sports betting and gambling market has become a real prospect. In many cases, in relation to German customers, it is the law of another state which is chosen as the basis for the contract between the customer and the provider (e.g. “Allgemeine Wettbestimmungen” (General Betting Regulations) under Austrian Law).

In our last newsletter, we reported on the decision pending before the German Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. In view of the planned comprehensive constitutional clarification, a great number of courts have responded by suspending current competition law, adminstrative law and criminal law proceedings in anticipation of the Constitutional Court Decision. Astonishingly, the actual addressees of the letter (which we cited in our last newsletter) from the Federal Constitutional Court, the local regulatory authorities, appear to be the least affected by it.

betandwin, Continental Europe's leading provider of Internet sports betting on an expansion course with its sports sponsoring activities, has announced that it is to partner the new Red Bull Formula 1 racing team.

The founders, Attorney Dr. Wulf Hambach and Attorney Claus Hambach specialise in the areas of European and International Betting Law New Law Firm for Gaming Law in Munich

betandwin has announced the signing of an exclusive cooperation agree­ment with Premiere Austria, a 100%-owned subsidiary of Premiere Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG, Germany.