By Samantha Williams
A trend that found roots way back during the late thirties, monopoly still remains the key word for the Germans, as a result of which, online gambling saw its own demise from Jan 1st 2008. The decision came up as a result of the new German law that shall be preserving the monopoly for all the forms of lotteries and betting games held within the country.
To be practiced by 13 out of the 16 states of Germany, the new agenda bars any sort of online gambling; alongside, it has also put a stop to brokerage activities. The Internet service providers have also been ordered to block certain web sites running illegal betting and related operations while banks need to put a stop to money transfers to all the sites that comply to the criteria of illegal gaming i.e. betting over the web from within the German territory with a company belonging to another country.
While the German government is true from its own point of view, the new regulation however, has attracted numerous criticisms from the online German gambling community. While the German government is looking at the whole game plan as a way to stop the money from going outside the country, long time online gamblers are criticizing massively the new regulations as much as the Internet betting companies and lottery brokers. The ones that got the centre stage due to the controversy are Bwin Interactive Entertainment, Tipp24 and Fluxx, who further turned up the heat by claiming the regulations as contrary to law and stated that they would be filing a lawsuit against the policies if required.
Bwin lived up to their threat and has since October 2007 sued four of the sixteen German states, and is hopeful about continuing the online betting offers despite the pending cases. A license holder both from Germany and Gibraltar, they are currently looking up to the European Court of Justice for returning to business during the second half of 2008.
The European Commission backed much of the opposition indirectly; Germany was asked to reconsider the entire law by the Regulator of the European Union since they consider the agenda disproportional. However, Germany’s answer concerned the citizens of the country – it is a step they took to protect the Germans as well as the economy.
Tipp24 seems to be rather hopeful about the new law becoming a passé shortly; their expectations are that the new rules shall be overturned in the court. That may also save a lot of advertising firms and websites who earn money through their adverts and promotions on gambling websites and online gambling companies who advertise on the television. Currently the new law stops them from inciting, prompting and inviting people directly for a game; thus either the law needs to be redesigned in a creative fashion or allow the advertisements to let people know more creatively about the possibilities of online gambling. And it’s just a few more months to reveal the winner: it shall be either the German Government, or the people.
