Saturday, December 23, 2006

A German court has announced that it has rejected a constitutional challenge
to a ban on online sports gambling from an internet sports betting company.
The company was not named in court papers. The nameless company has quoted a
March 1990 judgment in the state of Thuringia, going back to the days of
East and West Germany, which permitted sports betting. However, a following
ruling in 2004 banned internet betting with immediate effect. Although the
name of the company has been kept under wraps, news that shares in Austria's
Bwin.com fell 2.8 per cent perhaps offered some light on the identity,
particularly after Bwin has been at odds with the German state officials
recently. Germany's 16 states are currently in the process of drawing up a
law to prevent internet gambling completely in an effort to protect the
monopoly enjoyed by its state-run lotteries. The reasoning behind this
decision seems to go against the desire of the European Union to open up the
market, with Bwin claiming that if the law goes ahead their business model
would become obsolete. However, Bwin, who are currently the biggest
bookmaker in Germany, received some slightly better news earlier this week
as a Bavarian regional court suspended an order which attempted to ban Bwin
from accepting bets from Bavarian residents. "Bwin can continue to offer
sporting bets in Bavaria and to accept bets from Bavarian customers," Bwin
said in a statement.
The ruling, one of many pending court cases with German states, means that
Bavaria cannot enforce a ban before the main court case is heard.