As mentioned above, the Lottoland Group did not agree to be classified as an “illegal operator” by the German gambling authority. The Gibraltar-based company said it intends to defend its rights to offer its services in Germany in court in case the local gambling regulator continues to issue intellectual property blocking orders. On Friday 8 July, the Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder (GGL) announced that it had issued blocking orders against Lottoland in the fight against unlicensed websites. They claim that lottery sites` offers — lottoland.com, lottohelden.de and lottohelden.com — are bets on the outcome of a lottery draw, rather than participating in the actual lottery draw. Lottoland has threatened to take legal action against the blocking of its IP addresses by Germany`s new gambling regulator. Lottoland had been the subject of the Gaming Authority`s first payment and intellectual property blocking orders, which the regulator said were due to the fact that betting on the lottery is illegal under the Fourth State Gambling Treaty. He added at the time that he considered vertical to be particularly damaging, as players can mistake a lottery bookmaker for an actual lottery. The German regulator says Lottoland, which offers betting on the results of lottery games, is illegal and should not offer its products to customers in the country. As a result, GGL asked payment providers and internet service providers to isolate Lottoland from the local market. These measures affected all Lottoland subsidiaries, including lottoland.com, lottohelden.de and lottohelden.co.
In order to remove the illegal gambling services of the Lottoland Group from the market, GGL systematically uses all the instruments at its disposal. For example, it has already been possible to persuade several payment service providers to cease their cooperation with Lottoland and to exclude transactions with illegal gambling providers in the future. Lottoland concluded that its offers were not illegal, despite GGL`s claims to the contrary. At the beginning of next year, GGL will assume full responsibility for gambling in Germany and will have the task of maintaining the legal market while fighting the black market. Benjamin Schwanke, president of GGL, assured industry players that fighting the black market remains GGL`s top priority. According to Lottoland, the gambling authority may also not know whether its restrictive measures against the company are legal or not. The representative of the gambling operator recalled that Benjamin Schwanke had previously said that the regulator was entering a new territory of law, revealing that the watchdog`s actions would have to be reviewed by a judicial authority. The Lottoland spokesperson pointed to the fact that the country`s internet service providers have not yet suspended access to the online lottery company, but if they do, the operator could take legal action against them and the German gambling regulator. The company considers that its products and services do not violate the freedom to provide services within the European Union, and in this case, the EU treaties must prevail over national law, so that its offers are not illegal, as claimed by the Gaming Authority.
“It is extremely important to educate Internet service providers. Suppliers who do not prevent access to unapproved bids despite the GGL`s order are threatened with severe penalties,” says Board Member Ronald Benter. In its opening salvo, when it was first given the interstate responsibility to “combat illegal gambling” on the internet in early July this year, GGL successfully ordered several payment service providers to stop working with Gibraltar-based Lottoland. Another instrument for combating illegal gambling is network blocking (called IP blocking in GlüStV 2021). The joint gambling authority of the federal states relies on transparency and discussions with internet service providers in its approach to network blocking. “It is extremely important to raise awareness among ISPs. Providers who fail to prevent access to unauthorized bids despite the GGL`s order are threatened with fines,” said CEO Ronald Benter. In order to remove illegal gambling offers from the Lottoland Group from the market, GGL systematically uses all the instruments at its disposal. It has already been guaranteed that several payment service providers have stopped working with Lottoland and will exclude future transactions with illegal gambling operators.