Friday, December 15, 2006

Germany's federal states plan to ban Internet gambling, according to draft
documents to be discussed by the country's state premiers on Wednesday.
Reports in the German media are suggesting that Germany's states will meet
this week to outline plans for banning Internet gambling in the country.
Despite pressure from the European Commission to open up Europe's gambling
market to competition, ministers from most states want to sign off on new
rules aimed at protecting their lucrative monopoly as lottery operators,
said Handelsblatt. German lottery company Fluxx AG has joined fellow online
compatriots Tipp24 AG in saying
that it may have to abandon its native market if the country's 16 states
pass a new law effectively banning private operators. Fluxx's CFO Stefan
Haenel said that the company would not give up on Germany without a fight,
but warned that it would be going to 'use opportunities' outside the
country. It was also reported that the mainly private firms, such as Tipp24
and Fluxx, would be granted a one-year transition period. The ministers will
meet in Berlin on Wednesday morning.
The state of Saxony and two other states imposed a ban earlier this year on
commercial betting. That was directed mainly at Austrian Internet betting
firm bwin.com whose German unit is the country's biggest commercial
bookmaker. Bwin and its peers are facing increasingly stringent regulations
in the United States and Europe, where governments are curbing Internet
gambling to protect customers and state-run lotteries. The European Union's
commissioner for internal markets and services has already said that the
current German state monopoly breaches EU law and said that the government
needs to pass laws that apply to everyone, both private companies and
state-run gambling operations, equally.