Germany declines all Gaming applicants

41 applicants who applied for online gaming licenses in Germany were hit with quite a blow this week. Germany’s Interior Ministry has declined all applicants for not meeting their minimum requirements for a federal online gaming license. The application declines came with additional notice from the Interior Ministry showing that it might take quite a while before we see legalized gaming within Germany.

With the notification of the decline, another notification was sent out stating that the German government is unable to approve any applicants, and that more guidance will be given to all applicants in the beginning of 2014.

This came as quite a shock to a majority of the applicants. Germany, who announced their bill for the legalization of online gambling in the summer of 2012 requested to interview about 20 of the applicants this spring. The interviews had led the applicants to believe that the winners of the 20 available licenses were to be announced shortly. This was proven wrong earlier this week with the decline of all applications.

We recently posted on the strict regulations that New Jersey State is imposing on operators and casinos, but it seems that Germany’s regulations are even stricter. With more information set to be released in the beginning of next year, some are already predicting that Germany will not be issuing licenses until the beginning of 2015.