Message 001
Communication from the Commission - TRIS/(2025) 1793
Directive (EU) 2015/1535
Notification: 2025/0360/DE
Notification of a draft text from a Member State
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MSG: 20251793.EN
1. MSG 001 IND 2025 0360 DE EN 08-07-2025 DE NOTIF
2. Germany
3A. Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie, Referat EB3, E-Mail: infonorm@bmwe.bund.de
3B. Bayerisches Staatsministerium des Innern, für Sport und Integration, Sachgebiet A4, E-Mail: Sachgebiet-A4@stmi.bayern.de
4. 2025/0360/DE - H10 - Games of chance
5. Second State Treaty amending the State Treaty on Gambling 2021 (2nd GlüÄndStV 2021)
6. Regulation of gambling in Germany
7.
8. The State Treaty on Gambling 2021 (GlüStV 2021), which entered into force on 1 July 2021, was subjected to an initial review on 31 December 2023. On the basis of this review, the following amendments are to be implemented:
1. The legal basis for ‘IP blocking’, as referred to in § 9(1)(3)(5) of the GlüStV 2021, will be adapted to reflect current legislation, as amended in the interim, and current case law from the highest courts (see BVerwG, judgment of 19 March 2025, 8 C 3.24). In the future, the responsibility criterion will be waived for IP blocking so that Internet access providers are also recorded as recipients of measures. In addition to complete website blocking, the legal basis also covers the removal of illegal content (see Article 1(3)(a) 2nd ÄndGlüStV 2021-E).
2. The existing query competence of the licensing authority pursuant to § 4b(2)(2) GlüStV 2021 is to be extended to national law enforcement authorities in accordance with the authority already in place for the supervisory authority and, in view of the organisers’ international business activities, to foreign law enforcement and security authorities (Article 1(1) 2nd ÄndGlüStV 2021-E).
3. For the same reasons, the existing authority of the gambling supervisory authorities to cooperate with certain authorities and to exchange data under § 9(3a) GlüStV 2021 is to be extended: It will now also be possible to cooperate with foreign law enforcement authorities, with (domestic and foreign) security authorities and the Central Office for Financial Transaction Investigations (Article 1(3)(b) 2nd ÄndGlüStV 2021-E).
4. According to the state treaty, the comparison with the blacklist file prescribed in § 8(3) GlüStV 2021 may only be performed using the access identifier assigned to the relevant permanent establishment in the terrestrial area, or to the relevant Internet domain in the case of online gambling, and that disclosure of the access identifier and the authorisation of its use by third parties is prohibited (Article 1(2) 2nd ÄndGlüStV 2021-E); in order to enforce the obligations, the catalogue of § 28a(1) is extended by corresponding fines under Article 1(7) 2nd ÄndGlüStV 2021-E). The purpose of the provision is to enable clear allocation of blacklist file queries and thus to facilitate supervision.
5. § 27h(3)(2) GlüStV 2021 provides that, for all contracts concluded by the Joint Gambling Authority of the Federal States (Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder, GGL), irrespective of the duration of the contract, the GGL’s articles of association must provide for a value limit of EUR 100 000, beyond which the Board of Directors must be involved (Article 1(5) 2nd ÄndGlüStV 2021-E). Currently, the Board of Directors must always decide on contracts with a duration of 5 years or more. In this respect, there is no value limit. In order to keep the Board of Directors free from decisions of no substantial importance, the articles of association of the GGL should in future be able to lay down de minimis limits for longer-term contracts (e.g. newspaper subscriptions).
6. The introduction of the new § 27h(6a) GlüStV 2021 ensures the confidentiality of the meetings of the Joint Gambling Authority of the Federal States’ Board of Directors, while respecting parliamentary and official information rights.
7. The audit of the GGL’s annual financial statements according to § 27m GlüStV 2021 is set to be become less bureaucratic: The involvement of all courts of auditors in the sponsor states, which has hitherto been required for the appointment of the statutory auditor, has proved unnecessary and unnecessarily time-consuming. Therefore, in future, the exercise of the rights under § 53(1)(1) HGrG will be made possible solely by the Ministry of the Interior of Saxony-Anhalt as supervisory authority and the Court of Auditors of Saxony-Anhalt (Article 1(6) 2nd ÄndGlüStV 2021-E).
8. The amendment to the State Treaty is also being used for an editorial adjustment of § 9a(1)(4) GlüStV 2021 (Article 1(4) 2nd ÄndGlüStV 2021-E).
9. These amendments will improve the tools used to combat illegal gambling, compensate for undesirable developments and facilitate the work of the administration and the GGL’s Board of Directors.
Re 1.: The State Treaty on Gambling 2021 reintroduced the authority to block websites (referred to as network blocking) as an important tool for combating unauthorised offers on the Internet. One type of technical implementation involves the ‘domain name system’ block. As a general rule, such a DNS block must be set up by the Internet access provider. Under the rules currently in force, the recipients of such an administrative blocking order included only service providers responsible within the meaning of §§ 8 to 10 TMG. In order to effectively prevent threats in future, the amended regulation waives the responsibility criterion to include, in particular, Internet access providers in the circle of possible recipients of official blocking orders.
Re 2.: The extension of the existing query competence to foreign law enforcement and security authorities takes into account the fact that applicants often belong to internationally active business associations. In the case of applicants established abroad or applicants associated with foreign companies, it is accordingly necessary to be able to query foreign law enforcement and security authorities with the relevant information.
Re 3.: An extension of the regulation to foreign law enforcement authorities appears necessary in view of predominantly international gambling service providers. Particularly in the area of gambling offers, which is vulnerable to crime, further knowledge is of great importance, in particular in order to achieve the objective of preventing consequential and accompanying crime associated with gambling.
Re 4.: The explicit inclusion of the obligation to use only the identifier assigned to the local permanent establishment or the Internet domain for comparison with the blacklist file is intended to enable the competent supervisory authorities to assign it accurately and improve verifiability. Any abuse in the form of the transfer of access identifiers to third parties or their acquiescence will now be better prevented by the introduction of a corresponding prohibition under the State Treaty.
Re 5.: The Board of Directors, as an organ of the GGL, is to decide on the fundamental matters of the GGL. The Board of Directors will also be responsible for overseeing the Governing Board. In order for the Board of Directors to be able to carry out fundamental and important tasks, the new version of § 27h(3)(2)(11) now provides for a threshold for the participation of the Board of Directors to be laid down in the articles of association for all contracts concluded by the institution. This simplifies administration and ensures the working capacity of the Board of Directors.
Re 6.: In view of the far-reaching supervisory and authorisation competences of the GGL, the activities of the Board of Directors, as a body of the GGL, are to be kept confidential. Without the necessary confidentiality, open opinion formation and neutral decision-making by the Board of Directors would be impaired.
Re 7.: The involvement of all sponsor states, which is required under budgetary law for the election or appointment of the statutory auditor, has not proved necessary and unnecessarily time-consuming in practice. Therefore, § 27m(2) creates the conditions for the rights under § 53(1)(1) HGrG to be exercised in future solely by the competent supervisory authority and the Court of Auditors of the state of domicile.
10. Reference to the basic texts: Basic texts have been sent within the framework of a previous notification:
2020/0304/D
11. No
12.
13. No
14. No
15. No
16.
TBT aspects: No
SPS aspects: No
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European Commission
Contact point Directive (EU) 2015/1535
email: grow-dir2015-1535-central@ec.europa.eu
