Abstract

Comprised of a plurality of legal actors and powered by a highly polarised social and legal discourse, German gambling law provides a framework for the ever booming gambling market. It is challenged by digitalization and by the internationalization of gambling. In addition, it faces adverse regulatory impulses, ranging from liberalization to a firm regulatory grasp within a couple of years. On the one hand, it purports to offer a sufficiently attractive supply of gambling products in order to draw the public into legal forms and away from illegal forms of gambling. On the other hand, its regulatory objective seeks to fence in and suppress the gambling urges of the population.

On the whole, German gambling law is characterized by three, legally and factually interdependent problems. First, it needs to come up with a practical, inclusive and dynamic legal definition of its subject-matter, i. e.: what counts as legally relevant gambling? Second, it needs to define, maintain and implement larger objectives in regard to a target audience that do not overburden the executive und judicial branch with the need to reconcile contradicting regulatory impulses. Finally, it needs to guarantee a sufficient degree of implementation, which is achieved by combination of rational and high-quality legislation, adequate resources, and the necessary political will. Gambling law in Germany lacks these features to varying degrees. It, therefore, increasingly falls prey to mere legal symbolism that pretends to govern the gambling market much more than it actually does. The constitutional distribution of legislative and executive competencies in favor of the German Länder (“states”) is largely insufficient. Governing gambling in an international and highly digitalized market requires federal legislation and execution. The German federal authorities should consider federalizing gambling law by means of Art. 72 II GG and creating a federal gambling agency on the basis of Art. 87 III GG.