Decision of the Administrative Court of Gießen, Germany
Positive future prognosis irrelevant for permit revocation
Disappointing decision for an international betting company in Gießen. The RP Darmstadt (the Regional Council of Darmstadt) imposed several conditions on the betting company when it was granted permission, including, among other things, carrying out an identity check when entering the betting office and asking whether it was a restricted player. All this was intended to consider the requirements of youth and player protection. However, during an inspection in 2022, the RP Darmstadt discovered that neither an entry check was carried out on that day, nor had the player blocking system been queried without gaps in the past. As a result, the RP Darmstadt revoked the permit.
The betting company filed a lawsuit, applied for urgent legal protection at the same time and argued that no negative future prognosis could be derived from the violations identified. However, the Administrative Court now rejected the application for urgent legal protection. The revocation of the RP Darmstadt was lawful. A positive future prognosis is not even relevant here, since this would only have to be examined for the permit.
The court is yet to decide on the lawsuit.
Nevertheless, the decision of the Administrative Court of Gießen shows that the requirements for the granting of permission must be taken seriously. We therefore offer internal shop-audits for your betting shops. Internal audits can serve as an aid to your compliance with internal and external requirements in the areas of player protection, data protection and money laundering prevention. Thanks to internal audits by ECCG GmbH, you can also prepare your company for possible (unannounced) on-site audits.
Please contact us for more information on internal audits.
If you have any questions about our services and products please feel free to contact us via mail info@chevron.group or telephone +49 6104 775 1000.