Betting online is becoming more and more popular. Currently there are about 2.2 million Germans who bet and gamble on the internet. Most of the time the amounts of money at stake are small, says the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM). Half a million Germans bet on sports events, in particular soccer matches. 96% of these bet on games in the German premier league and one in six on major soccer events in general. These data were provided by the Forsa polling firm.
About 700.000 Germans are set to bet on the results of the soccer matches at the European soccer championships. But soccer is not the only area for sports betting on the internet. Other kinds of sport to bet on are horse racing, tennis tournaments and Formula one. Besides sports betting there are also lotto and poker which entice 700.000 and 430.000 Germans respectively into gambling. This makes a lot of money flow into the pockets of the organizers.
BITCOM is very upset about the state treaty on gambling which took effect at the beginning of this year and which in the opinion of BITCOM is in breach of EU legislation. The EU Commission holds the same opinion and launched an infringement procedure against Germany’s controversial ban on online betting. BITKOM fears that German companies currently operating in this field on the internet may soon have to face court orders banning their business operations. BITCOM claims that Germany should not cling to outmoded laws dating back to pre-war times, but make sure that more start-ups be launched in Germany. If Germany put obstacles in the way of such businesses, new jobs would be created elsewhere which would hardly be in the interest of Germany. 