29th
Online Gambling Situation in Germany and France
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Despite the fact that Germany is endeavoring to ban online gambling in an attempt to protect its state owned gambling monopolies, this has only put a slight dent in the incidence of online gambling in Germany according to the results of a survey released last week.
The survey, which was conducted by Bitkom, was based on a sample size of 1000 and resulted in a conclusion that the number of German online gamblers had only reduced from 2.2 million last year to 2 million this year. It was also concluded that over 1.7 million online gamblers are male and that Lottery makes up 59% of the online gambling market share. Lottery is followed by online poker at 22% and sports betting at 18%.
The next meeting has been scheduled for March 2010 and Bitkom executive, Achim Berg, will be trying to persuade the German states to modernize the current gambling laws at this meeting.
In terms of the German Interstate Treaty on Gambling, there is a ban on internet gambling but the German state of Schleswig-Hostein has suggested a licensing system instead of the ban. It is hoped that the treaty, which is effective till 2012, will not last the full year or at least not be renewed.
Meanwhile, France is allowing non-state operators to compete for a share of the market and many leading European online gambling operators, including Paddy Power, have already announced partnerships with French groups in preparation therefor.
The online gambling industry was hoping that the new French laws would be in place before the FIFA World Cup which is to be held in South Africa in 2010 but, unfortunately, it does not look as though the liberalized regime will be in place until after the World Cup.
