The current German treaty for gambling (valid in most states) prohibits Online Poker, and allows only sports-betting. At the moment only 2 states (North Rhine Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein) haven’t signed the treaty, but should do it very soon.

The German state treaty requires a 5% tax payment for each bet, a measure that lead Betfair to close operations in the biggest market from the European Union.

After local elections, the German state Schleswig-Holstein (that still allows online poker) changed to a leading coalition that already shown intention to sign this new state treaty on Online Gambling, however the companies with a state gaming licence, can still operate until the licence validation end date.

The European Association for Gambling and betting says this treaty is illegal, according to European directives, and presented a formal complaint to the European Commission. Commission that, according to Michael Barnier (European Commissioner for inside markets and services) hopes to elaborate a law on online gambling for all countries in the European Union.

Follow all recent iGaming developments on our Twitter, Google+ and Facebook