The 2021 State Treaty on Gambling: the rules for online casinos

The 2021 State Treaty on Gambling (Glücksspielstaatsvertrag 2021, GlüStV 2021) is the joint rulebook of the German federal states for public gambling, both online and on land. It defines what can be licensed online, creates the OASIS block register, the LUGAS limit file and the official whitelist, and hands online supervision to the Joint Gambling Authority of the States (GGL). Who receives a German casino licence, who grants it and which brands are on the whitelist is summarised in the licence overview; this page covers the sections of the treaty itself.

Quotations follow gesetze-bayern.de: version of 29.10.2020, text applying from 01.01.2023, retrieved 07.10.2026. Every casino without OASIS is also measured against this treaty, because it sets the block duty, the deposit limit and the whitelist.

The core is § 4(1): public gambling may only be organised or brokered with a licence from the competent state authority; unlicensed gambling and taking part in payments for it are prohibited. § 4(4) lists what can be licensed online at all: lotteries, sports and horse-race betting, online casino games, virtual slot games and online poker. All other public gambling on the internet remains prohibited. Minors are excluded under § 4(3).

For licensed online operators the treaty spells out the duties in §§ 6a to 6j. Only one player account per operator is allowed (§ 6a(1)). Until identity is confirmed, play and withdrawals are barred, except play with up to €100 in deposits for 72 hours after registration (§ 6a(4)). Payments run only through an account in the player's name; anonymous payment methods are barred for remote sales (§ 6b(4)). Loans to players are prohibited (§ 4(5)), and operators must run an automated system for the early detection of gambling addiction (§ 6i(1)).

Online supervision lies with the GGL, which the states set up on 1 July 2021 as a public-law institution based in Saxony-Anhalt (§ 27a). It can prohibit payment service providers from taking part in payments for unlicensed gambling (§ 9(1)).

§ 8(1) establishes a central block system covering all forms of gambling. It is run for all states by the gambling supervisor of Hesse, the Regional Council (Regierungspräsidium, RP) Darmstadt; according to the RP this is based on §§ 8a–8d, 23 GlüStV 2021 in conjunction with § 15 of the Hesse Gambling Act (HGlüG). Who enters data and who must check before play is covered on the page about the OASIS block register. Operators query with name and date of birth, and the answer is only „blocked“ or „not blocked“.

Blocked players may not take part in public gambling (§ 8(2)). Exempt are lotteries with at most two draws a week, prize-linked savings and land-based totalisator horse betting; online instant lotteries are not exempt. Which forms of gambling the block covers, from the land-based casino to the gaming machine in a pub, is shown on the page on the scope of the OASIS block.

§ 8a distinguishes two routes. A self-exclusion is based on the player's own application. A third-party block is entered by operators when they know that a person is at risk of gambling addiction, over-indebted or staking amounts out of proportion to income or assets. Before a third-party block the person concerned is given the opportunity to comment. Applications can be filed with the operator or directly with the RP Darmstadt. Both the block application and the application to lift it are free of charge for players (§ 8c).

A block lasts at least one year (§ 8a(6)). A self-exclusion may be shorter on request, but not under three months; a shorter request counts as three months. A third-party block always lasts at least one year. Under § 8b no block ends by itself: the blocked person must file a written application with the authority, at the earliest after the minimum period. The lifting takes effect once entered, but not earlier than one week (self-exclusion) or one month (third-party block) after receipt. Forms, documents and contact hours are on the page on how to lift an OASIS block, which walks through the official procedure.

§ 23 governs the stored data, including names, date of birth, address, reason and duration of the block and the reporting body; the data are deleted six years after the block expires. Alongside it stands the short-term block under § 6i(3): a clearly labelled button triggers a 24-hour block in OASIS without a confirmation prompt, and it ends without an application. Operators may not push blocked players to apply for lifting and may not grant bonuses or discounts after a block is lifted (§ 8(4)). For counselling the GGL names the free BIÖG hotline 0800 1 37 27 00.

According to the GGL, LUGAS is the cross-state supervisory system made up of the limit file and the activity file. § 6c(1) requires every player to set a monthly cross-operator deposit limit at registration, in principle no more than €1,000. Without a limit there is no participation. Once the amount is reached across all operators in a calendar month, no further deposit is allowed. Before every deposit the operator queries the limit file (§ 6c(6)) and refuses if the limit would be exceeded; it may state the remaining amount.

An increase only takes effect after a protective period of seven days, while a reduction applies from entry. Per the GGL, failed deposits also count and the limit resets on the first of the month. Only the operator decides on raised limits, according to the GGL; the authority itself cannot change the limit. How an increase works and which operators do not query the LUGAS limit is shown on the dedicated page with a comparison table of operators.

Under § 6c(9) the limit covers all public gambling on the internet; only deposits for lotteries with no more than two draws per week and prize-linked savings are exempt, while instant lotteries count. The activity file under § 6h prevents parallel play: a player is only ever active with one operator, and a waiting period of five minutes applies when switching. Every 60 minutes a notice on the elapsed playing time must be confirmed (§ 6h(7)).

§ 9(8) obliges the competent authority to publish online a joint official list of all licensed organisers and brokers and to update it at least monthly. The GGL keeps this whitelist with filters for virtual slot games, online poker, sports betting and online casino games; when retrieved, the page showed the date 02.10.2026. Per the GGL, an offer lacks a licence until its application is approved and listed; pending applications are not disclosed.

Under § 6e(3) licensed offers run on a .de domain and state on the home page that under-18s may not play, along with the licence and the supervisory authority; all required information must be available in German (§ 6e(4)). The GGL does not require a registered office in Germany, and licensed operators carry a GGL seal. A full-text search of the whitelist found no match for 7Signs, Wild Tokyo, MyStake and Sportaza or their operator names.

Classic banking games such as roulette and blackjack, called „online casino games“ in the treaty, are a special case: according to the GGL the states regulate them themselves, and as of May 2025 there were five concessions in Schleswig-Holstein and Bavaria. Operators of virtual slot games with a GGL licence may not use the term „online casino“.

For online slots, § 22a contains the most detailed rules in the treaty. A game must last at least five seconds on average, the stake may not exceed one euro per game, and play is only in euros and cents. According to the GGL, a tiered deviation is possible under conditions from 1 July 2026: up to €3 from age 21 and up to €5 after 90 days of play without signs of addiction, limited until 31.12.2027. The average payout rate and the probability of the top win must be clearly displayed.

Prohibited are jackpots that accumulate stakes or winnings for future wins, playing several slot games at the same time, and any program sequence that starts the next game by itself after a game ends. After confirming the hourly notice, play may only resume five minutes later.

The states also have their own implementing acts for responsibilities and state-specific matters. Official versions are published by North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein and Berlin, among others; recht.nrw.de lists the North Rhine-Westphalian act implementing the treaty under 01.07.2021.

Hesse shows how state law and the treaty interlock: the state runs OASIS for all states (see above). The GlüStV 2021 also extended the group of obliged parties to commercial slot machines in gaming arcades and pubs. The states publish the treaty text on their legal portals, for example gesetze-bayern.de, revosax.sachsen.de and rv.hessenrecht.hessen.de.