A German administrative court has ruled that the state gambling regulator may not enforce its own orders — because, in the court's view, the authority is undermining the consumer protection it exists to uphold. The decisions come just as Germany's states rush to hand that same regulator sweeping new powers to block websites.
The Verwaltungsgericht (administrative court) in Halle issued several rulings — on 6 August (case numbers 7 B 491/25 and 7 B 492/25) and 24 August 2026 (7 B 62/26) — that stop enforcement orders by the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL). One case concerned the authority's attempt to force Google to remove search results for two gambling offers targeting users in Germany. The court declared the supervisory basis in Section 9 of the 2021 state gambling treaty inapplicable, citing a 'structural enforcement deficit' that violates EU law: the GGL had systematically tolerated an illegal expansion of supply within the regulated market.
The background is the handling of deposit limits. The state treaty caps monthly deposits at 1,000 euros, and raising the limit requires proof of financial capacity such as tax assessments or bank statements. Since 2023, the GGL is said to have accepted a simple Schufa credit score as proof — a score that measures default probability, not income or wealth. As the Regional Court of Lüneburg found in 2024, even financially weak players could set deposit limits of up to 10,000 euros. Reports from Bremen (July 2024) and Lower Saxony (April 2025) criticized the procedure. Although the GGL knew of the flaws since at least early 2024, it kept the practice and carried it into 2026. The court also noted that the GGL raised the maximum stake per game from one to five euros on 1 July, citing inflation — a justification the judges met with a quoted '?!'.
Under European Court of Justice case law, a state may restrict market access by foreign providers only if it pursues its protective goals coherently and systematically. A regulator that undermines those goals loses the right to sanction violations — which, in the Halle court's view, removes the GGL's legal basis and overturns assumptions from a December 2024 ruling by the Higher Administrative Court of Saxony-Anhalt.
The political response has not slowed. Germany's states are ratifying in fast motion an amendment to the state gambling treaty that grants the GGL far-reaching IP-blocking powers. The reform drops the requirement of 'responsibility' so that access providers can be compelled as mere conduits — a step critics fear will lead to over-blocking of legal content. A new Section 27h of the treaty also declares the GGL's administrative board meetings confidential.
'The state parliaments give the GGL new powers for network blocks while its governing body withdraws from the public — and courts attest that it systematically undermines legal player protection,' says lawyer Nik Sarafi, who is involved in the proceedings. 'The blocks threaten to become a means of shielding an inadequately supervised market from competition.' The Hamburg Higher Administrative Court has meanwhile referred fundamental questions about the compatibility of the lottery monopoly with European competition rules to the European Court of Justice.
