“I know of a case in which someone gambled away half a million euros within two years.”
The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe should hear your case regarding sports betting on May 2nd. It has been rumored since mid-April that the sports betting provider Betano has to repay its client, a former gambler from Saxony, in full for his losses. The betting provider has now withdrawn its application for revision at short notice. Surprising to you?
Not surprising at all, on the contrary it was almost to be expected given the history of this case. The gambling providers obviously prefer not to risk a BGH hearing. Originally there should have been a first trial on the same issue before the BGH on March 7th of this year. However, both parties announced two days in advance that they would agree otherwise and let these proceedings rest. The judges had already dealt with the matter very intensively, so that there was a so-called reference decision with a clear trend for our proceedings. The Dresden Higher Regional Court was the first nationwide higher regional court to decide in favor of our client, whereupon Betano appealed to the Federal Court of Justice. This has now fallen on the feet of this provider, who is also one of the sponsors of the 2024 European Football Championship. This ruling from Dresden becomes final and Betano must repay the player all of his losses of around 12,000 euros, which he gambled away in 2018, plus interest.
They had already assumed that the Federal Court of Justice would officially enshrine its decision in a judgment. What was this optimism based on?
In a position of the court that was clearly visible in April. There is already established case law for casino and online slot machine games due to numerous OLG decisions, but things have been different for sports betting so far. The decisive factor for the Supreme Court’s reading was not – as expected – primarily the question of whether the sports betting provider had a valid license or not. For the court, the decisive factor was whether a provider adhered to the rules formulated in the first State Treaty on Gambling in 2012. These generally only provided for a stake of 1,000 euros per month for online sports betting and live betting only on final results. This was particularly violated when it came to football betting; for example, by offering up to 130 different bets for a single Bundesliga game – including on who has the next throw-in, who has the next free kick or corner. The rules and specifications were not adhered to on a large scale and the content was completely undermined. That’s why the BGH now decided on the reversal, which essentially means: Affected players will be reimbursed for their losses with interest.
Will a huge wave of lawsuits now follow?
At least the legal prerequisites for this have now been created and the chances of success are great. I know of cases in which someone gambled away half a million euros within two years. There are several hundred lawsuits pending in our office alone. In total, there are already over 10,000 lawsuits, and there will certainly be more, considering that between 2012 and 2020 – when licenses were awarded for the first time thanks to a revised state gaming treaty – de facto all providers violated the rules. That’s why this ruling also says that even if there had been licenses before 2020, these companies would definitely not have received one because of their business practices.
Around five percent of people in this country take part in sports betting. What effect does the judgment, which has now become legally binding, have on the betting providers, who, according to official information, achieved annual sales of 8.2 billion euros in 2022?
I’m very excited to see what this does to the providers. Some will very likely say goodbye to the German market and move abroad to continue operating their business illegally. Others will find themselves in existential difficulties if all ongoing proceedings against them are enforced. The largest providers of the 30 or so currently active on the market will be able to cope with the repayments and may say that this will result in a kind of “market shakeout” and consolidation.
Little will likely change in the ubiquitous advertising of sports betting, primarily in TV sports reporting.
This cannot be assumed for the time being, and this is particularly worrying when you know that we are primarily talking about gambling addiction and the most expensive advertising space and advertising space that exists. But we still have completely different problem areas. Unfortunately, the monthly limit for stakes was only capped for online sports betting. At the so-called local betting offices, the highest sums can be gambled in cash. This is one of the loopholes in the law that literally invites money laundering.
