Casinos accepting players from Germany

Online gambling, except betting on horseraces, is illegal in Germany since the beginning of 2008, when the Interstate Treaty on Gambling came into effect. Even banks are prohibited to conduct any transactions facilitated by any of these sites. However, Germans are more than welcome to entertain themselves at one of the many state-run land casinos or play on a wide range of video lottery terminals that are placed on their high streets.

Of course, such regulations look violating on the background of the free and fair competition policy that is set by the European Union and the European Court of Justice. On 1 January 2012 the treaty on gambling expired and seeing the opportunity to liberate the market just a little, the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, Schleswig-Holstein, did the first bold move. It managed to issue around half a hundred licenses to various online sports betting and online poker rooms, but was soon brought back to reality by the Gambling Regulation and Supervision. Even though other states managed to liberalize online gaming to some extent as well, it’s not applicable to online casinos. For now, German citizens can mostly enjoy limited online betting and lotteries and wait till the situation turns in their favour.