German State Gambling Treaty Deferred

It seems like many countries are still working on their gambling laws and policies, and Germany is no exception. Online gambling is a billion dollar industry, and you would think governments would try and jump on this gravy train faster so they can get their cut, but for whatever reason, they keep moving at a turtle pace. Had these German officials made up their mind, the government would be making some good tax money, especially at a 16.66% turnover tax.

The latest country that is moving a little slow, and losing a significant amount of tax dollars is Germany. German prime ministers of the 16 German federal states, represented by the prime minister of Saxony-Anhalt, Reiner Haseloff, has expressed that all of them have jointly agreed to defer any decisions on a new State Gambling Treaty until October 2011.

When a country has no online gambling regulation, like Germany, consumers will play at offshore markets, considered an “uncontrolled black market.” German citizens don’t have a country based gambling website, so they have no choice but to gamble offshore. The unfortunate thing about this is that they also take a chance playing offshore because there are online gambling sites out there that are not regulated, and will take anyone’s money just like that. With a regulated site, and private online gambling operators being allowed to offer their websites to a country, that ensures player fairness, player protection, and it benefits the government as well financially.