Industry Heavyweights Hit Back at New Gambling Restrictions in Berlin

Germany is well known in the gambling industry as a conservative market, especially when it comes to online casino games. Only one of their 16 states, Schleswig-Holstein, opted in to legalise internet gambling. It seems this conservative viewpoint may be moving across to the land-based arena too, as new laws in Berlin place heavy restrictions on gambling, which may result in many of the city’s arcades and betting halls closing down.

The Berliner Spielhallengesetz is a new set of laws introduced on 1 June 2020, which are aimed at limiting the congestion of betting houses across the city. The new legislation sets about placing distance requirements between venues, new operating hours, and further restrictions on the number of gaming cabinets allowed per arcade.

 New Rules in a Nutshell

The new laws stipulate the following:

• No venue can be located within 500 meters of another. This will effectively reduce the number of halls down from 496 to 120.
• No betting venues may be located within a proximity of 200 meters from a school or youth facility.
• Venues may only operate between 11 am and 3 am each day.
• Venues may have no more than 8 devices for gambling play. This means that there will be no more than 960 legal gaming machines spread throughout the city at a ratio of 25 to every 100,000 citizens. This is a minute amount in comparison to the national average of about 170 machines per 100,000 citizens.

While the laws only came into force this year, the Senate Department for Economic Affairs, Energy and Business began refusing renewal applications last year already. 124 were turned down under trading regulations, while a further 36 were refused because their venues fell within a 200m proximity of a school.

 Dismayed Industry Leadership

Both the Gauselmann Group and Novamatic Group are industry giants in Germany and Austria, and both have publicly stated their disapproval of the state’s new legislation. The great disparity between the way Berlin is being treated versus the rest of the country is baffling. The Gauselmann Marketing Director, MR Manfred Stoffer, stated that he was sure that the demand for gameplay in Berlin matched that of the rest of the country and suggested that failure to meet the demand would provide a suitable gap in the market for illegal trade. He assured the public that they would continue to fight the restrictions together with Deutsche Automatenwirtschaft and the Landesverband der Automatenkaufleute Berlin.

He went on to say:

"Our social duty as an industry is to offer legal and high-quality games that meet people's natural gaming needs. The bleak situation in Berlin shows how important this is. We are ready to reclaim the terrain that has been lost to the grey and black markets. Berlin just has to give us the chance.”

The sentiments are shared by Löwen Entertainment, one of Novamatic’s subsidiaries. Board member, Dr. Daniel Henzgen also warns that the new actions that seek to deprive folks of quality gaming will force them to turn elsewhere for their entertainment. The original regulations where agreeable because they were geared to the protection of players and under-aged minors. He went on to say:

“If politics fails, only organised crime will ultimately benefit,” he said. “[There’s] no player and youth protection in this environment.”

A well-regulated offering of games was the best defence against illegal gaming activity, in his opinion.

 Just The Beginning

The changes in regulation will not only influence the crime rate within the industry but could result in mass unemployment. The city of Berlin, alone, employs over 70,000 people in this sector; a great deal of those face a real threat of immanent joblessness.

These restrictions are only the start though. As from October, similar laws will apply to Bookmakers in the city, with further effects on job losses, profit losses, and a potential foothold for illegal and unsafe trade.