German Gambling Act 2023

Check out the new GlüStV for Canada

If there's one issue you can't get past as a player right now, it's the new Canadian Gambling Law. The so-called Gambling law regulates your online gambling and catapults online casinos to a legal level. It was introduced in July 2021. We will now explain to you what changes a German gambling law entails.

German Gambling Law: An end to the legal grey area

A German Gambling Law 2021 was introduced in July 2021. To be precise, the individual federal states ratified it at that time and since then it has been in force nationwide! We do not want to deal with the past gambling state treaties in a great way here. In short, there have already been various attempts to regulate online gambling. The last one was carried out by the state of Schleswig-Holstein. It was the only state that issued its own gambling licenses. Regardless of this, until now every gambling law has been dragged to the European Court of Justice and then torn up there.

But, as I said, we don't want to dwell on the old laws for a long time here, but introduce you to the new gambling law in detail. Because we assume that it will not be dragged before the European Court of Justice and will therefore be valid in the longer term. For you as a player, the time in which you have often moved in a legal gray area in online casinos ends. This is a decisive advantage.

Officially, the Gambling Law was introduced to protect players, unofficially because of the new tax!

Highly officially, the Canadian policy has introduced this new gambling law in order to be able to regulate the market and to ensure player protection. Because in addition to this authority, which monitors the deposit limit, it will also be possible in the future to completely exclude yourself from the total offer. Players who do not have their gambling behavior under control should be helped in this way. Unofficially, it was introduced in order to be able to tax online casinos. Because they now have to cede 5% on every bet to the German tax authorities. The taxation of online providers was difficult for the German state for providers based abroad and with an EU license.

German Gambling Law: GlüStV brings these changes

In order for an online casino in Canada to legally offer its services on the net, it must comply with the requirements of the State Treaty on Gambling. This includes, on the one hand, that the deposit limit is reduced to CA$ 1000 per month. In the future, there will be a control authority to which all licensed online casinos are connected, so that this 1000 CA$ deposit limit applies to all available providers.

RTP Reduction or 1 cent Spin deduction trigger new gambling tax

Since the Online Gambling law stipulates that online casinos must pay 5 percent tax from now on, but which have so far offered machines with payout percentages around 95%, the casino operators had to think of something new. If we stick to the payout ratio of 95%, then 5% house edge always goes to the casino. For example, the costs for the license or the employees are covered. If there is now an additional 5% deduction on top of that, the bill will no longer work.

Therefore, due to the new gambling law Canada, online casinos partially reduce the payout percentages on machines. So it may happen that you get an 87-89% RTP on the Book of Dead instead of the previous 96%. Other providers rely on a penny deduction for each spin. Videoslots, for example, try their hand at this model.

Experienced long-term gamblers notice the difference, beginners & casual gamblers can not care!

Only if you are one of the permanent players like our editors who play every day, then you somehow notice the changed payout ratio due to the new gambling law. If you are a casual gamer, then you will not notice them. And if you are a beginner who is just starting to play, then you are just getting used to the new payout percentages anyway and generally do not notice any change. No one will be talking about these changes in a year at the latest.

FAQs on Gambling Law