German minister proposes removal of licence cap
With European ruling approaching, state of Hesse outlines proposals for radical overhaul of regulatory framework
German egaming regulation could face a radical overhaul after the Hesse Ministry of the Interior yesterday called for the removal of the 20-licence limit and the replacement of the country’s regional gambling board with a central authority modelled on Great Britain’s Gambling Commission.
The minister of the interior and sport for the German state of Hesse Peter Beuth, who had previously criticised the licensing process publicly, said the system needs to be opened up to a wider number of operators.
“We should move from a quantitative to a qualitative concession,” Beuth told the German Press Agency yesterday, adding that any operator which meets the licensing requirements should be granted a licence.
Beuth also argued that Hesse’s Glücksspielkollegium gambling board, which is comprised of representatives from Germany’s 16 states and deals with licensing in accordance with 2012’s Interstate Treaty on Gambling, should be replaced by a central gambling authority.
Such an authority would be closer in composition to Great Britain’s Gambling Commission, which Beuth said would have the advantage of “all matters relating to the private gaming market [â¦] concentrated in one location”.
Alongside the proposals, Beuth also questioned why there was no existing provision for poker or casino licences.
However, while Beuth’s comments will buoy the industry, Hesse may struggle to find support from other states to reach the two-thirds majority needed to implement its proposals, with one source telling eGaming Review that that it remained “isolated” on the issue.
“The mainstream opinion in the committee is to proceed as decided and defined in the current regulation, despite of all the problems,” the source told eGR.
Pressure has been mounting on Germany’s troubled framework for some time. A series of court rulings have slammed the process and the issue could come to ahead when the European Court of Justice is expected to return a non-compliance verdict on the current regulation in September.
And yesterday Germany’s highest-selling newspaper Bild slammed the current regulatory framework, describing it as “total chaos”.
“After the recent court decisions it is now clear that the current sports betting licensing procedure is going nowhere,” Martin Arendts, a leading German gaming lawyer, told eGR.