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Interview FACHVERBAND SPIELHALLEN


INTERVIEW DR. DAMIR BÖHM – ATTORNEY FOR THE GERMAN SPORTS BETTING INDUSTRY


Dr. Damir Böhm is the legal adviser to the ‘Fachverband Spielhallen’ – FSH (The Association for Arcades). This association was founded by the chairmen of the ‘Bundesverband Automatenunternehmer’ (BA) – which works at state level supporting arcade operators. The FSH is the ‘new strong voice’ of operators for the whole of Germany and supports the BA is specific arcade- relevant themes. Dr. Böhm studied law at the University of Bielefeld and achieved his doctorate in 2012.


G3: How long have you been advising the German sports betting industry?


DB: I have been active here for six years now


G3: Please help us shed light on the current legal situation for sports-betting in Germany.


DB: Back in 2011 the European Commission decid- ed that a state monopoly for sports betting is con- trary to EU law. The German state had tried to jus- tify this by the channelling of focus on responsible gaming. This was not accepted by the EU. Thus, the market had to be liberalised. The concession process began in 2012 and is still in process. From a total of 41 applicants, this will be reduced to 20. However, a year has passed by and nothing effec- tive has happened. We believe that state require- ments are just too high. The state of Hessen is responsible for this. Five separate concepts have been put together with over one hundred individ- ual requirements. These include the economic feasibility, stationary and online, payment and social concepts.


G3: How many companies have fulfilled the state requirements?


DB: The state of Hessen stated in January of this year that none have fulfilled these. Each company is to receive an explanation from the state with the stated required changes. The companies will be given a set amount of time to make these changes – until 15.03.2014. Then by the middle of the year we expect the state then to reply again.


G3: What could happen then?


DB: We expect companies that will see their bid rejected take up legal proceedings. If this happens, this will take up time. In effect, this could mean that we see no changes made up until 2015.


G3: But the state is missing out on significant tax revenue?


DB: This is true. The sports-betting market is not defined at present. There are many companies in Germany offering sports-betting with about 10,000 sports betting terminals in operation. The


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Dr. Damir Böhm – attorney for the German sports betting industry


Five separate concepts have


been put together with over one hundred individual


requirements. These include the economic feasibility, stationary and online, payment and social concepts.


sports-betting market has a total turnover of between €4-5bn. The tax rate is set at five per cent.


G3: What recommendations would you make?


DB: In a liberalised market, why should the state set the amount of companies that can operate sports betting? That is contrary to the notion of the free market. It seems that the state wishes to raise the requirements so high that only a small number of companies if any at all could adhere to these. We recommend the state set the require- ments at a fixed level and that all companies who have reached these can then operate in this busi- ness segment. The focus should be on the require- ments for sports betting to work in a legal market and not on how to reduce the market size of con- tenders for a concession by constantly changing the goalpost.


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