Germany’s unique federal regulator Gemeinsamen Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL), is now ready to regulate the online gaming market in Germany. This announcement came from the Gambling College meeting on December 13th, 2022.
At the end of that meeting, the authority members of the Gambling College symbolically handed over the files to the GGL, so now GGL can start fully operating in the country, regulating the market.
Main tasks and responsibilities
The GGL team will help boost the regulation of the online gambling market and take it to another level. The main task of this regulatory body will be to supervise the German gambling market regulation starting effectively from January 1st, 2023.
Among other GGL responsibilities, the federal regulator will assess all gambling operators in the country and grant them approval at a national level. The regulator will ensure that the gambling operator holds a valid gambling permit, following rules and regulations.
For the operators to be able to provide their services in Germany, they must adequately adhere to the rules regarding gamblers’ protection, responsible gambling, gambling addiction, and so on.
The GGL has already taken legal action against some operators that provided services out of the law and against gambling ads since they started their services on July 1st, 2022.
The GGL will directly oversee German states
In previous years, various state-level departments were handling the federal gambling regulation, which was not an ideal solution. It was only sometimes effective, so this new national regulatory body will have more power and a higher focus on tackling various gambling-related operations.
For example, Hamburg will hand over their commercial lotteries to GGL, Niedersachsen will give its lottery brokerage, Hessen its horse race and sports betting, and Sachsen-Anhalt will transfer its online slots and poker.
The German federal regulator will hire over twenty new professionals at the beginning of the new year, with fresh employees bringing their licensing expertise and applying supervisory methods for better regulation.
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