German bookmakers angered by 10-hour sports betting outage

A near 10-hour sports betting outage in Germany has prompted criticism from the German Sports Betting Association (DSWV), one of the biggest gambling trade bodies in the country. 

Local sources revealed that customers across the whole of Germany were unable to place deposits with betting providers for 10 hours straight last Saturday after a failure at a key regulatory system. Licensed firms are concerned this may have driven some customers to the black market. 

This was hinted at by Mathias Dahms, DSWV President, who addressed the issue by saying: “This is not just about considerable economic damage.

“If legal sports betting offers cannot be used by customers from Germany on a Bundesliga Saturday, the illegal betting providers, who are very happy to accept new customers and deposits, will benefit first and foremost. 

“There is no player protection in the black market. The German tax authorities are also left empty-handed.”

Reason for the outage

Online gambling providers in Germany licensed by the national regulator, the GGL, must be connected to the LUGAS network – the Germany Interstate Gambling Evaluation System. 

The system is used to collect data provided by operators to ensure that the mandatory deposit limits and compliance requirements are met. 

Namely LUGAS seems to be at the core of the outage, with the system unexpectedly shutting down on Saturday and preventing legal operators from taking deposits and registering new customers, the DSWV explained.

The DSWV has now called for a “proper investigation” into why the legal market has been ‘brought to a standstill’. It also directly addressed the GGL by asking it to consider the introduction of a 24/7 customer service support for gambling operators through the regulator’s IT partner Dataport – something the DSWV said has ‘demanded for years’. 

GGL responds

The GGL has also acknowledged the LUGAS outage, confirming that licensed online providers were indeed unable to accept deposits and process new account applications.

In an attempt to ease the tension, the GGL added that LUGAS could still facilitate bets made by existing customers with credit already in their accounts, even when the system goes down. 

The regulator also explained that it contacted Dataport immediately being informed of the outage, with the IT service provider resolving the issue later that Saturday – fully rebooting LUGAS operations. The exact causes for the outage are still being investigated.

However, no mention was made regarding DSWV’s request for 24/7 Dataport support.

The news comes days after the GGL addressed an international audience at the DAW Berlin Congress, where it asked politicians to consider stricter measures against the black market.