Not even a year after the landmark European Gambelli decision, a new remote gaming case is pending before the European Court of Justice (ECJ). While the final decision in the Gambelli case is still pending before the national court, national authorities in various Member States had to judge on the de facto consistency of the national gaming policy and its compatibility with European law. The conclusion of one year post-Gambelli case-law is that the Gambelli and Lindman requirements are applied in a very diverging manner. In the Betfair appeal case, it was even insinuated that Gambelli was not relevant!

Long lasting depression of the stock market is to be contrasted with the fresh boom in the betting exchanges. Financial bets and digital options are becoming more and more popular particularly among risk-loving private investors. On the one hand, numerous small investors are still deeply disappointed as a result of the stock exchange crash, particularly as at the high point of the stock exchange fever at the end of the 90’s, there was a progressive decline in the previous upward market trend as a result of the discovery of the concealed actual value of the securities.

The Local Court of Offenbach (AG Offenbach) holds the Hessian Sports Betting Act to be unlawful - The Administrative Court of Darmstadt (VG Darmstadt) will decide on this within the next few days. In November 2004, Lotto Hessen announced rejoicingly on its website (www.lottohessen.de), that: "(The) controlled campaign of the illegal (Note: this is used by the State providers to refer to "private") sports betting providers, with the aim of creating a legal uncertainty in the sport betting market, has collapsed."

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.

Spieler entwickeln die unwahrscheinlichsten Ideen, um das Roulette aus zu tricksen. Mit einer 750ml Spezial-Druckflasche, die ca. 8 Bar Druck entwickelt, beeinflusste ein Betrüger die Roulettekugel und gewann.

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

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.

ISA-CASINOS recherchierte, wie es dazu kommen konnte, dass ein Trio in London mit dem "Handy-Trick", der auch fälschlicher Weise als "Lasertrick" benannt wird, 1.900.000 Euro gewinnen konnte. Das Ergebnis war verblüffend, da der Trick doch nicht so neu war und auch bereits in Deutschland, Österreich, San Remo und Monte Carlo verwendet wurde

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.