The judgment<\/a> announced today by the Court of Justice of the European Union in proceedings brought by two companies established in Malta, holders of a license issued by the Maltese authority responsible for gambling, which offer virtual slot machine games and betting on the results of lottery draws. Between June 2019 and July 2021, a player residing in Germany used these services and lost several bets. However, at the time of the events, German law prohibited almost all forms of online gambling, including virtual slot machines and betting on the lottery draw results. <\/p>\nUpon discovering this, the player decided to “take a chance” on getting his lost money back, and the matter has therefore been referred to the courts. <\/p>\n
At the conclusion of the proceedings, in its judgment, the Court states that “EU law does not preclude national legislation prohibiting the organization of
\nonline casino games, slot machine games and certain forms of betting, such as betting on the results of lottery draws,
\nwith the aim of steering gambling activities into supervised channels and combating parallel markets.” Furthermore, EU law \u201cdoes not preclude recognition of the legal consequences of such a prohibition despite the subsequent
\nintroduction of a system of approval, nor the nullity of contracts concluded in breach of that prohibition, nor a
\ncivil action for restitution of the stakes lost.\u201d <\/p>\n
Online gambling constitutes a service for the purposes of the Treaties of the European Union, and the freedom to provide such services “may be
\nrestricted for overriding reasons in the public interest, in particular, consumer protection and the protection of social order.
\nIn the absence of harmonization and given the moral, cultural, and social differences between Member States, the latter
\nenjoy discretion in determining the level of protection sought.” <\/p>\n
According to European magistrates, online gambling poses greater specific risks in this regard than gambling in physical venues<\/strong>, “particularly due to the permanence of access, the isolation and anonymity of the
\nplayer, the absence of social control, the potentially unlimited frequency, and its attractiveness to young and vulnerable
\npersons.” Therefore, “in that context, a Member State may prohibit online casino games, including slot machines, and certain forms of online<\/strong> betting<\/strong>, while permitting other forms of gambling, including in physical establishments, or subjecting certain online
\ngambling activities to distinct regimes.” <\/p>\nAccording to the Court, \u201cEU law does not therefore, in principle, preclude a finding that a contract concluded between a consumer and an operator
\nestablished in another Member State, relating to services prohibited in the consumer\u2019s Member State, is void\u201d, and therefore \u201can action for restitution of the stakes lost is not precluded by EU law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Member State may ban online casino games, including slot machines, as well as certain forms of online betting. The judgment of the Court of Justice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":450527,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25712],"tags":[33782,29258],"class_list":["post-450545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","tag-giochi-on-line","tag-judgment-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450546,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450545\/revisions\/450546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}