German Gambling providers are actually bracing themselves for the new law’s implementation because it may dramatically shutter their businesses the coming year. The majority of German gambling establishments and portals are afraid of losing their licenses, according to Euractiv, since in January 2024, German regulators are said to apply significantly stricter gambling rules. Moreover, the transitional period of the enacted in 2012 law is about to expire.
Right after the European Court of Justice declared that the country’s former regulations failed to correspond the European Union law, the German gambling niche has witnessed a lot of uncertainty. To tell you the truth, the very first who are likely to be influenced by the novel gambling rules implementation are the arcade providers. As the German gaming industry board’s spokesperson, Georg Stecker, admitted, the entrepreneurs simply featured no chance to be able to adapt to the situation as they didn’t know if they could be able to keep on running their services and hiring people. It was on July 31 when the new stringent rules have started to be implemented.
Noteworthy is also the fact that gaming regulators, issue licenses to modern providers if their areas are 0,5 km beyond any comparable institution. If to rely on such rules, the majority of German premises are likely to face closure.
Therefore, the German gaming industry board’s spokesperson put red flags of concern that the development in Berlin is likely to cause imposing penalty to the providers who, up to now, were not in breach of any kind of regulations.
At the same time, as the newspaper Neue Osnabrücker states, the federal government’s advisor on drugs, Marlene Mortler, admitted that the latest law was planned to, before everything, withstand the gaming obsession. Interesting is the fact that when it comes to gambling addiction, the very first type of all currently existing online casino games associated with it, are believed to be slot machines. Mortler also added that these days, the teenagers aged 18-20 are reported to gamble far more than previously. That is the real reason why the authorities have decided to do everything possible to avoid legal vacuums and close all currently available legal loopholes, or at least the majority of them, as soon as it is possible. He also reminds that the main purpose of this strict gambling law is to effectively protect players, especially the youngsters.
Finally, the German gaming industry board’s spokesperson called for effective protection for anyone vulnerable to obsession; that includes far better personnel teaching and improved biometric, low-threshold systems which are specially created to better identify any signs and symptoms of addiction.