Raising the LUGAS deposit limit at casinos

LUGAS is the central file in which every operator holding a German permit adds up a player's deposits. Under § 6c(1) of the 2021 State Treaty on Gambling (GlüStV), the ceiling is, as a rule, €1,000 per month, counted across all connected operators together rather than per account. Anyone using one of the casinos without OASIS is outside this system: nobody there queries the limit file, and deposits are never added up across operators.

One user on gutefrage.net asked: „Darf ich einzahlen und auszahlen nach belieben oder kann man irgendwie probleme kriegen?“ (may I deposit and withdraw as I like, or can I get into trouble?). The first reply in that thread pointed to „die 1000Euro Deposit Grenze pro Monat“, the €1,000 monthly deposit cap. That cap does not apply to withdrawals without OASIS; there, only each brand's own limits count. Legal status: GlüStV 2021 and the FAQ of the Joint Gambling Authority of the German states (GGL), retrieved on 7 October 2026.

LUGAS stands for the cross-state gambling supervision system (länderübergreifendes Glücksspielaufsichtssystem). According to the GGL it has two parts: the limit file, which stores the monthly deposit limit and the running total of deposits, and the activity file, which records the operator a player is currently active with. According to the GGL, the data are held only in pseudonymised form.

OASIS is something else: the nationwide exclusion file that the state of Hesse runs through the regional council (Regierungspräsidium, RP) of Darmstadt (§ 8(1) GlüStV), also simply called the OASIS block register. OASIS answers only one question, namely whether a person is excluded. According to RP Darmstadt, the answer an operator receives is either „Der Spieler ist nicht gesperrt“ (the player is not excluded) or „Der Spieler ist gesperrt“ (the player is excluded). LUGAS, by contrast, works with amounts and times. An OASIS exclusion therefore has nothing to do with the state of the deposit limit, and an exhausted limit is not an exclusion.

What the two systems share is the group of operators. A permit holder checks OASIS at sign-up and at every sign-in, according to the GGL, and queries the limit file before every deposit. Operators that are not on the official GGL list are connected to neither system. That is why „without OASIS“ and „without LUGAS“ almost always appear together in search queries.

At sign-up, every player has to set an individual monthly deposit limit; without one, taking part in a game is not possible. Anyone trying to enter more than €1,000 is asked to correct the figure, and the maximum amounts may only be displayed at that moment. The limit applies to all public gambling on the internet, meaning online casino games, virtual slot games, poker and sports betting, and expressly also to instant lotteries online. The only exceptions are deposits made solely for lotteries held no more than twice a week, and prize-linked savings (§ 6c(9) GlüStV).

What counts is the total of deposits in a calendar month with all operators subject to the limit. A player who uses part of the limit with a licensed sports betting operator (unlike betting sites without OASIS, which are not counted) has only the remainder available at an online casino in the same month. Before every deposit, the operator queries the limit file. If the amount would exceed the limit, the deposit is refused; the operator may, however, state the amount still available and start a new deposit for that amount (§ 6c(6)).

Withdrawals and winnings do not change the calculation. LUGAS is a deposit limit, not a loss limit: a player who has deposited the full monthly limit and then wins cannot make another deposit in the same month, even if the balance is high again and the winnings have long been paid out.

One detail regularly causes confusion in forums. According to the GGL's LUGAS FAQ, failed deposits are recorded as well, for example when a payment is interrupted by a poor internet connection, a blocked payment channel or a failed sign-in with the payment provider. The GGL describes this as required by law and not correctable. A second attempt for the same amount can therefore count against the monthly limit once more.

The total resets on the first day of each month. The amount, date and total of deposits are deleted without delay once the month has ended; the master data and the chosen limit remain stored until one year after the last activity. Once that year has passed, the next deposit is aborted and the limit has to be set again (§ 6c(7) and (8)). There is no history of earlier months, according to the GGL: the system holds only the data of the current month, and previous months and earlier changes to the limit can no longer be seen.

The €1,000 ceiling applies „grundsätzlich“, as a rule, in the wording of the law. An operator with a German permit can allow a higher limit. According to the GGL FAQ on deposit limits and maximum stakes, a limit of up to €10,000 per month requires inconspicuous playing behaviour and documented financial capacity; a self-declaration by the player is not enough. Limits above €10,000 and up to €30,000 may be granted by an operator to no more than 1% of its active players.

The decision on such a request lies with the operator alone. The GGL states expressly in its LUGAS FAQ: „Eine Limitänderung durch die Behörde kann nicht erfolgen“, the authority cannot change a limit. By its own account, it has no means of intervening when an increase is refused. Contacting the authority therefore changes nothing about the limit, unlike a request concerning the OASIS exclusion file at RP Darmstadt; the operator holding the player account is responsible.

On the query of how long a LUGAS limit increase takes: under § 6c(1) GlüStV, an increase takes effect only after a protective period of seven days. A reduction, by contrast, applies without any waiting time. Before that period starts, the operator checks the documents; the law does not say how long that check may take. The operator may not charge the player any costs or fees for setting or changing a limit (§ 6c(10)).

Advertising is restricted too. According to the GGL, operators may not advertise that the cross-operator deposit limit can be higher than €1,000. This is separate from operator-specific limits: every permit holder must additionally offer daily, weekly or monthly stake, deposit and loss limits (§ 6c(2)). These own limits can be changed at any time free of charge and apply alongside the LUGAS limit, not instead of it. A forum user described exactly this duty at a German operator: a „verbindlicher Monatlicher Limit“, a binding monthly limit that had to be set before playing.

The query „lugas limit erreicht ohne einzahlung“ (LUGAS limit reached without a deposit) describes a typical situation: the account is new, or nothing has been deposited this month, and yet the operator reports an exhausted limit. The rules of the GlüStV and the GGL point to four possible causes.

• Failed deposits count, including via PayPal. An aborted payment, including one with another operator, uses up part of the shared monthly limit and, according to the GGL, is not corrected.
• Deposits with another operator in the same month count as well, including sports betting or an instant lottery online.
• The limit the player chose is below the desired amount. Anyone who entered a low limit at sign-up reaches it sooner; a later increase only takes effect after seven days.
• The limit has expired. One year after the last activity, master data and limit are deleted, the deposit is aborted, and the limit has to be set again.

What the authority itself can clarify is limited. The first point of contact is the operator that refused the deposit. When refusing, it may state the amount still available (§ 6c(6)).

Besides the limit, LUGAS enforces the ban on parallel play. Under § 6h GlüStV, a player may not play with several operators at the same time. Immediately before the first game, the player is reported as active in the activity file; a second operator only lets the player start once this flag has been removed. The check against the OASIS exclusion file takes place at the same moment (§ 8(3)).

The flag disappears five minutes after signing out with the first operator. The operator must make signing out easy at the player's request and must report the sign-out to the file itself once more than 30 minutes have passed since the player's last input (§ 6h(4)). A player who simply closes the window without signing out may therefore, in the worst case, wait half an hour and then another five minutes before another operator lets the game start.

According to the GGL, the most common reason for the message that a player is still active with another operator is a program or browser tab left open at that operator. Operators are obliged to set the player to inactive on request. If that does not work, the GGL can only help when the operator's name and the player ID are given. This LUGAS ID has up to 127 characters and can be found in the profile at the operator concerned.

The activity file is connected only to permit holders. With operators that hold no German permit, parallel play across several operators is therefore not detected. The notice about elapsed playing time, which players must expressly confirm every 60 minutes under § 6h(7) GlüStV, is likewise a duty of permit holders only, as is the 5-second rule for game rounds on virtual slot machines.

„lugas sperren lassen“ (have LUGAS block me) and „lugas entsperren“ (unblock LUGAS) are frequent queries, although LUGAS itself does not manage any exclusions. Exclusion runs through OASIS. A self-exclusion is requested from the operator or directly from RP Darmstadt; as a rule it lasts at least one year, or at least three months if the player asks for a shorter period (§ 8a(6)). The panic button, which permit holders must display wherever a game can be played, triggers a 24-hour block without a confirmation prompt; it is entered in OASIS and ends without any request.

A player who wants to deposit less within LUGAS without being excluded lowers their own deposit limit; the reduction applies without a waiting period. The way to lift an OASIS block, by contrast, is a written procedure: no earlier than the end of the minimum period, with a request signed by hand and a copy of an identity card or passport, sent to RP Darmstadt. For a self-exclusion, the lifting takes effect no earlier than one week, for an exclusion by a third party no earlier than one month after the request reaches the authority (§ 8b(3) GlüStV). Requests for an exclusion and for lifting it are free of charge for players.

The GGL lists free telephone counselling from the BIÖG on 0800 1 37 27 00, Monday to Thursday from 10 am to 10 pm and Friday to Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm.

The queries „ohne lugas limit“ (without a LUGAS limit) and „online casino ohne limit spielen“ (play at an online casino without a limit) are aimed at operators that are not connected to LUGAS. Only permit holders listed on the official GGL whitelist are connected; what a German casino licence covers and how the whitelist can be checked is therefore directly tied to the LUGAS connection. A full-text search of the whitelist, last updated on 2 October 2026, returned no match for 7Signs, Wild Tokyo, MyStake or Sportaza, nor for the names of their operating companies.

On participation in exclusion registers, AskGamblers lists „Self-Exclusion Register Participation: No“ for 7Signs, Wild Tokyo and Sportaza, meaning no participation in self-exclusion registers. OASIS and LUGAS are not named there. For MyStake, no information is available on this point. AskGamblers does not list a deposit limit tool of their own for 7Signs, Wild Tokyo or Sportaza; for MyStake, a player on casino.guru reports that there were „keine Einzahlungslimits“, no deposit limits.

No deposit ceiling does not mean no ceiling on withdrawals. For Wild Tokyo, the figures are €500 per day and €8,000 per month according to casino.guru, and €6,000 per month according to AskGamblers. MyStake pays out up to €7,500 per week and €15,000 per month according to casino.guru, with higher amounts paid in instalments according to LCB. For Sportaza, casino.guru and AskGamblers give €500 per day and €7,000 per month; according to a German-language player post, however, payouts there are possible „bis €1,000 alle 24 Stunden“, up to €1,000 every 24 hours. At Wild Tokyo, a player reported on AskGamblers that winnings of around €30,000 were paid out only once a week.

As the minimum deposit, the sources give €10 for 7Signs and MyStake.

The GGL states in its FAQ that operators without a permit lack player protection measures such as deposit limits or self-exclusion. A post on Reddit describes this from a player's point of view: „Es gibt dort keine OASIS-Abfragen, keine Einzahlungslimits und keinen wirksamen Spielerschutz“ (there are no OASIS checks, no deposit limits and no effective player protection). In another post, a player with an active OASIS exclusion describes deposits via Klarna with operators holding no German permit and asks about a chargeback. How such a claim works in cases like this is described on the page about getting money back.

Queries such as „einzahlungslimit revolut“ (deposit limit Revolut) mix up two different ceilings. The LUGAS limit does not depend on the payment method: with a permit holder, every deposit, whether by card, e-wallet or bank transfer, counts towards the same monthly total. Deposits and withdrawals there are only allowed through a payment account in the player's own name, and anonymous means of payment are excluded for remote gambling (§ 6b(4) GlüStV). Transfer or card limits set by a bank or by Revolut are independent of this.

With operators without LUGAS, the shared monthly total disappears, but the payment methods remain. Wild Tokyo Casino lists Revolut among its payment methods according to casino.guru, alongside Visa, Mastercard, Skrill, Neteller and several cryptocurrencies; the option of using Paysafecard at the casino is on that list too. For 7Signs and Sportaza, AskGamblers names Visa, Mastercard, Skrill, Neteller and Bitcoin among others; for MyStake, casino.guru names Visa, Mastercard, Skrill, PaysafeCard, Apple Pay and Bitcoin among others. None of the brands lists PayPal for deposits or withdrawals, so a search for PayPal without OASIS comes up empty with these operators.