Germany has been doing its utmost to try and ban online gambling in an attempt to protect its state owned gambling monopolies. However, this has only resulted in very little difference according to the results of a survey that was released last week.
The survey, based on a sample size of 1000, was conducted by Bitkom and resulted in a conclusion that the number of German online gamblers had reduced from 2.2 million last year to 2 million this year.
There is a meeting scheduled for March 2010 and Bitkom executive, Achmin Berg, intends trying to persuade the German states to update the current gambling laws at this meeting.
The German Interstate Treaty on Gambling put a ban on internet gambling but the German state of Schleswig-Holstein would prefer a licensing system instead of a ban. Hopefully the treaty, which is effective till 2012, will not last the full year or at least not be renewed after 2012.
France is presently allowing non-state operators to compete for a share of the market. Leading European online gambling operators, including Paddy Power, have meanwhile announced partnerships with various French groups.
Although it was hoped that the new French laws would be in place before the start of the FIFA World Cup which is taking place in South Africa in 2010, it does not appear as if the liberalized regime will come into effect until after the World Cup.