Bet365 and bwin can now offer regulated online sports betting within Germany after being awarded licences by the northern federal state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Schleswig-Holstein’s Ministry of the Interior announced today that the two operators, along with Tipico and BetClic Everest-owned Bet-At-Home, will be allowed to offer sports betting over the internet with immediate effect until 20 May 2018.
Interior minister Klaus Schlie emphasised that the regulatory bar had been set high for the four successful applicants. “A licence is granted only to those who can credibly provide evidence of their reliability and sustainable performance”. Schlie also revealed the identities of its eight-strong advisory board, which includes representatives from the state’s sports association, social protection agencies, lottery, crime office and university. “I’m sure the committee will make important contributions to the implementation of gambling legislation in Schleswig-Holstein,” he said.
Norbert Teufelberger (pictured) the co-CEO of bwin.party, which generated 22% of its revenue from its largest country market of Germany in 2011, said: “Schleswig-Holstein’s regulatory regime represents an important step in building a vibrant and competitive German online gaming market. This EU-compliant regime is a fundamentally important step to protect consumers and keep out black market operators in Germany.”
bwin.party, which saw more than a third of its share price wiped off in little more than a week last April when the German federal states or Lander proposed a restrictive opening for sports betting based on an unworkable 16.66% turnover tax, added that it expected to receive licence for online casino, covering the offer of poker, roulette, baccarat and blackjack, in due course.
Schleswig-Holstein was the only one of the 16 German federal states not to sign up to a new Interstate Gambling Treaty under which the remaining 15 Lander (G15) now plan to issue no more than 20 licences for private sports betting operators based on a marginally less unworkable 5% turnover tax. SH is planning to issue unlimited licences to operators for all products based on a 20% gross profit tax (GPT).
Following the award of online sports betting licences to Betfair, myBet and Oddset on 3 May, SH has now awarded a total of seven online gaming licences, all for sports betting, and is currently reviewing 24 other applications for sports betting and 17 for online casino games, it said today.
Legal experts Christoph Enaux and Henrik Armah of Olswang had argued following the election that the CDU-FDP’s issue of three licences in the days before they lost power exposed the incoming SPD-Green coalition to the risk of having to make huge compensation pay-outs to operators out of taxpayers’ money if they pursued their pre-election pledge of voiding the SH Gambling Act and opting SH back into the Interstate Gambling Treaty favoured by the G15. Further, the SPD’s candidate to replace Peter Harry Carstensen as prime minister of SH, Kiel mayor Torsten Albig, has publicly supported betting and gambling providers establishing businesses and paying taxes in the region.
According to SH’s licensing requirements published on 26 January, operators are only allowed to offer services to state residents and compelled to check the accuracy of submitted details with the state registry. The ordinance however gives no mention of what back up measures, such as geo-location, will be required by operators to prevent out-of-state German residents from playing on SH-licensed sites, or how out-of-region advertising by these same operators will be policed.
An accompanying “Monitoring Ordinance” relating to the required level of performance and technical requirements has not yet been released. German media houses started accepting advertising contracts from offshore gambling websites last year after the 16 Länder confirmed that the state monopoly on online sports betting would end in 2012.
