Saxony-Anhalt court upholds GGL ban on unlicensed online casino operator
Regulation4 min read
In brief
- The court rejected the operator's application and allowed a €50,000 coercive fine to be enforced.
- The court left open whether the GGL's SCHUFA-G practice for raising deposit limits is an enforcement deficit.
- Both decisions are final but based on summary interim review; the main proceedings remain pending.
The Higher Administrative Court of Saxony-Anhalt ruled in two decisions dated 21 October 2026 that a ban on an unlicensed online casino offer in Germany can remain enforceable, and that a €50,000 coercive fine imposed over the offer can also be enforced. The court rejected the operator's application in the first case (3 M 61/26) and changed the Halle Administrative Court's suspension order in the second (3 M 62/26). The court left open whether the GGL's SCHUFA-G practice for raising deposit limits amounts to an enforcement deficit.
The operator had applied for a German licence in August 2021. The Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL) rejected the application in May 2022 and in October 2022 prohibited the operator from continuing to offer its games in Germany. In September 2023 the GGL set a coercive fine of €50,000, taking the view that the offer had continued. The operator lost the interim proceedings against the prohibition in 2023.
The case returned to the courts after a December 2024 decision in which the court described the GGL's practice critically: licensees may raise the monthly deposit limit of €1,000 using a SCHUFA-G credit check. According to the Higher Administrative Court's account, the Halle Administrative Court concluded in August 2026 that if the authority handled player protection so generously for licensed operators, the licensing system was no longer compatible with European law, and every prohibition against an unlicensed operator was therefore unlawful. The Halle court ordered that the prohibition and the coercive fine not be enforced for the time being.
In its reasoning, the court held that an error in enforcement does not make the whole system unlawful. Even if the SCHUFA-G practice were an enforcement deficit, the court said, this would at most lower the level of protection, and foreign operators would not be disadvantaged because any of them could apply for a licence and then benefit from the limit increase. The court also held that a prohibition is not a penalty, since it only requires an unlawful offer to be stopped, so the European law ban on penalising operators after an unlawfully refused licence does not apply. At most, the court said, an applicant could not have its own breaches of the deposit limit held against it in the licensing procedure. The court also clarified its 2024 decision, stating that it had only meant to describe contradictory handling of player protection, not incompatibility with European law.
On the facts, the court noted that the licence had been refused in May 2022, while the SCHUFA-G practice goes back to a settlement before the Darmstadt Administrative Court in November 2022, so it could not have been the cause of the refusal. The court also held a series of further breaches against the operator, including on maximum stakes, minimum playing time, autoplay functions, anonymous deposits and use of the term "Casino". It also weighed that the offer continued after a lost court decision. The court therefore saw no obvious licensability that would require toleration.
On the coercive fine, the court classified it as a purely coercive measure intended to move the operator to stop the unlawful offer, and not as a penalty in the European law sense, just as with the prohibition itself. The court also found a breach on the merits: the fine notice was served on 8 September 2023, and according to the GGL's submission, which the operator did not substantively contest in the interim proceedings, advertising emails with bonus offers were still sent on 8 and 10 September. The notice of withdrawal from the German market followed on 16 September. The court found that the operator had neither claimed nor shown an imminent irreparable loss from payment.
Both decisions are final but rest on a summary examination in interim proceedings, and the main proceedings remain pending. Whether the SCHUFA-G credit check is a suitable proof of financial capacity has not been clarified by the courts; the Higher Administrative Court neither confirmed nor rejected the Halle court's assessment but expressly left the question open. The GGL is based in Halle, so disputes with it regularly come before the Halle Administrative Court and the Higher Administrative Court of Saxony-Anhalt.