Sunday, December 24, 2006

Germany's highest court dismissed a complaint by Internet sports betting
company Sportwetten Gera GmbH against a ban imposed by the state of
Saxony-Anhalt two years ago. ``Sportwetten Gera wanted the immediate ban to
be abolished,'' Rainer Nitzschke, director of the German association of
private sports betting companies, said by telephone today. ``This didn't
happen. Customers from Saxony-Anhalt will therefore be excluded from the
company's services.'' Germany's Federal Constitutional Court rejected the
complaint because the company didn't suffer a ``major disadvantage'' as a
result of the immediate ban, according to a statement published on the
court's Web site today. The complaint was filed after Saxony-Anhalt's
government ordered the company to stop accepting wagers in the region, it
said. The court on March 28 ruled that the German states can uphold their
monopoly on the country's gambling industry until the end of next year.
After that time, they will have to boost efforts to fight gambling
addiction. State governments have already banned Bwin Interactive
Entertainment AG, an Austrian Internet sports betting company, from
operating and are boycotting Fluxx AG, an Internet lottery agent, to drive
out competition.