German Inter State Treaty "completely botched"
Germany's sports betting licensing process comes under fresh criticism as another politician calls for it to be scrapped
A leading German politician has called for the country’s Inter State Treaty on gambling to be scrapped following what he described as a “completely botched” procedure.
Speaking to German media earlier this week, Wolfgang Greilich, domestic policy spokesman of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), said the decision to limit the number of licences to 20 was “arbitrary” and the only conclusion to take from the process was that it “must be changed”.
He also questioned how state lottery operator Oddset would push for an early award of a full licence in order to launch as early as possible with legal challenges from unsuccessful applicants expected.
“The EU Commission had repeatedly raised serious legal concerns regarding the State Treaty on gaming [and these] are not resolved by the recent judgement,” Greilich said.
“All this can only mean one thing, Prime Minister Bouffier must promptly make the chaos created by the Prime Minister end and come to an understanding with his counterparts in a rapid change of the contract,” he added.
Last week’s award of 20 provisional licences to the likes of Ladbrokes, Betfair and bwin.party failed to quell criticism of the process with a number of politicians subsequently condemning it.
Christian Democratic Union member Hans-Jorn Arp and FDP chairman Wolfgang Kubicki have called upon the German state of Schleswig-Holstein to break away from the Treaty or risk collapse under the expected legal challenges.
A number of major bookmakers such as BetVictor and German land-based giant Tipico are understood to be among a group of unsuccessful applicants preparing to mount legal challenges to the process, which could prevent the official award of licences on 18 September.