Gambling News
December 30, 2009
German Ban on Online Casinos Ineffective
Numbers revealed by a study of German gambling habits show the
country's controversial online casino ban has been largely ineffective.
Reports show that over 2 million Germans still patronise Internet
gambling sites, and meanwhile states have declared their intention to
discard the gaming ban when the treaty enforcing it expires in 2011.
Leaders in Schleswig-Holstein had said they would immediately withdraw
from the State Treaty on Gaming, but the state's Prime Minister now
says the region will honor the treaty through its expiration in 2011,
but would not extend the ban. Opponents of the accord say an open
gambling market would generate more revenue through regulation than the
monopoly does while protected.
The study by the Association of Information Technology,
Telecommunications, and New Media showed that lottery wagering is the
most popular form of online gambling with casino and poker gambling
roughly equal to sports betting.
Gambling industry experts have called for a lifting of the Internet
casino ban, saying that the soccer gambling scandals sweeping the
country prove that a ban is not effective protection, and only
regulation can properly guard sports integrity.
The German policy on Internet gambling is also a matter of contention
with the European Union, as EU rules require open markets on services
such as online casino gambling. Protection of the public can be used as
an excuse to maintain a gaming monopoly such as Germany's, but the
inability of the Germans to demonstrate significant effectiveness of
the ban could lead to infringement charges.
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