GGL marks five years with Halle anniversary event

Germany's Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL) marked five years since its establishment with an anniversary event at the Mitteldeutsches Multimediazentrum in Halle on 23 September 2026, according to a GGL press release. Representatives of the federal states, public administration, academia and international supervisory authorities attended, alongside GGL staff, to review the authority's build-up and discuss the future of gambling regulation in Germany.

The GGL said the 16 federal states pooled substantial parts of their gambling supervision in a joint authority when it was created, with the aim of organising oversight of an increasingly digital and internationally shaped online gambling market across state boundaries and enabling uniform enforcement. Five years on, the authority said it is established as a specialist authority operating nationwide. It supervises the legal online gambling market, monitors compliance with statutory requirements and takes action against illegal offerings, and around 100 staff now work on its various supervisory tasks.

At the event, the focus alongside the review was on how supervision can keep pace with a market whose business models and technical structures are changing dynamically. GGL board member Ronald Benter said in his speech that the five years had involved intensive build-up and shared responsibility, and that structures, procedures and instruments had been created in a short time to supervise the cross-state gambling market effectively. He thanked the authority's staff, and said regulation must be developed continuously in view of new technologies and business models.

Benter also thanked the 16 states and the members of the administrative council present for what he described as constructive and trusting cooperation over the past five years. He said the states had not only created the GGL in law but given it a demanding mandate and the conditions to build an effective joint specialist authority, and that the GGL now combines the gambling supervision of the 16 states and enforces state law uniformly nationwide. He gave particular thanks to Saxony-Anhalt as the state where the authority is based, saying much had to be built from scratch and that the state had designed the basic structure and contributed the necessary infrastructure and property.

Klaus Zimmermann, state secretary in Saxony-Anhalt's Ministry of the Interior and Sport and a member of the GGL administrative council, spoke for the state. Christian Hochgrebe, state secretary for the interior in Berlin's Senate Department for the Interior and Sport and chair of the administrative council, also recognised the authority's work. Both acknowledged the authority's development since its establishment and thanked the board and staff for their work over the past five years, with the build-up and the GGL's development into a nationwide specialist authority highlighted, as was the importance of close and constructive cooperation between the states, the GGL and other participants in the years ahead.

Besides administrative council members, representatives of state authorities and courts attended the anniversary event. Guests included the president of the Landesverwaltungsamt Sachsen-Anhalt, representatives of the city of Halle and of nationwide institutions based in Halle, as well as representatives of academia and European partner authorities.