SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Bundesrat debate has begun on which Länder (state) legislator should become the leading ‘supervisory authority’ of German gambling, should it approve the final conditions of the ‘4th Interstate Treaty on Gambling’.
Executives of Germany’s 16 autonomous Länder continue to debate final provisions and potential changes to the approved Interstate Treaty, despite its legislation being lambasted by a European Commission review.
Despite the criticism, the Bundesrat maintains it legislative timetable, standing by a 12 to 16-month window in which it will agree on final conditions allowing Germany to open a reformed federal gambling marketplace on 30 June 2021.
This week, Cologne-based news sources reported that the executive of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, had made its Bundesrat bid to become the supervisory authority for German federal gambling.
Earmarked as the ‘super-surveillance’ component of the German gambling marketplace, an ambitious supervisory unit has been planned to monitor all gambling transactions and further register all data on German gambling consumers.
NRW’s state consulate is reported to have drafted plans on developing a hi-tech monitoring unit, which will be resourced by 300 staff, with further provisions attached to bolstering server and data processing capacities.
The proposition of NRW is likely to be challenged by the executives of Schleswig-Holstein and Baden-Württemberg, with current sports betting ‘regulatory placeholder’ Hesse seeking to be included in supervisory requirements.
Further marketplace updates see German daily sports newspaper Bild report that despite a divided Länder, the Bundesrat continues to maintain the €1000 monthly spending limit on sports betting with further in-play betting restrictions.
