SBC News Appeals halt German sports betting licensing process

Appeals halt German sports betting licensing process

germancourt

The Administrative Court of Wiesbaden has temporarily halted the German Hesse Ministry plans of issuing twenty federal sports betting licences. The Court of Wiesbaden had received appeals from numerous unsuccessful applicants challenging the Hesse Ministry’s processes with regards to the issuing of sports betting licensing.

On 3 September 2014, The Hesse Ministry had awarded twenty operators with provisional sports betting licenses. The twenty chosen operators included domestic bookmakers, mybet, sportwettern and Digibet, UK betting operators Ladbrokes and Betfair, and Gibraltar based bwin.party.

The Ministry was due to issue the licenses to the chosen twenty today, however the Court of Wiesbaden ordered the process to be halted, after upholding the appeals made by the challenging betting operators.

German business news sources report that operators including bet365, Lottomatica, Tipico and BetVictor were among those to issue appeals against the Hesse Ministry’s ruling.

The operators claim that their licensing applications had been turned down by the Ministry on unjust and uncommunicative grounds. The operators had also claimed that throughout the process of application the Hesse Ministry failed to show any transparency in the process for application, making it hard for the applicants to gauge their progress in the licensing process.

Having successfully halted the issuing of sports betting licencing, the Administrative Court of Wiesbaden have not given any insight as to when and how the licensing will be reviewed. Some German news sources have speculated that regulatory sports betting in Germany may be delayed by up to a further 12 months.

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