The Administrative Court of Appeal in Hessen has overturned a ruling which prohibited online gambling operators such as Bwin from providing services to German customers.
The ruling was based upon what the court saw as the practical impossibility of enforcing such a ban. The court believed that the law was, essentially, 'null and void' because of the difficulty of enforcement.
The ruling means that Germany is gradually coming in to line with the rest of Europe in terms of gambling law. Other countries that have government gambling monopolies, such as France and Sweden, are also gradually relaxing their laws.
Sweden, for example, recently voted to privatize the state owned gambling company Svenska Spel. MP Tomas Tobé said “Sweden needs a model that ends the state's role as a player on the market. At the same time its role as a regulator needs to be strengthened and monitoring of the gambling market needs to be more independent.”
The hope for many gamblers is that eventually the US will follow Europe's lead and liberalize their gambling markets also. Europe believes that the increased transparency of a liberal gambling market will strengthen their hand in WTO dealings with the US.
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