For years Austria has presented a paradox to anyone watching its gaming market. On paper, online casino gaming has been the exclusive preserve of a single licensee, win2day, operated under the lottery licence held by Österreichische Lotterien (Austrian Lotteries). In practice, Austrian players have long gambled on platforms licensed in Malta, Gibraltar and elsewhere, and the courts have been occupied with a steady stream of player loss-recovery claims testing whether those contracts were ever valid at all.
The leaked draft law of a possible new regulation in Austria now circulating would end the monopoly for online games of chance (electronic lotteries), opening the market to an unlimited number of licensed operators. This is the right call, and it is overdue. A restriction on the freedom to provide services under Article 56 TFEU can be justified only where the restrictive system genuinely and consistently pursues the protection of players.
The Court of Justice has been clear and consistent on this coherence requirement. A monopoly that fails to channel demand toward the regulated offer, while the real activity migrates offshore, is difficult to defend on those terms. By aligning the law with the market reality that already exists, a multi-licence regime stands on firmer ground than the structure it replaces.
What could reform look like?
Here is the point that the current debate too often skips. Opening the market is a necessary condition for channeling players into the regulated environment but it is not a sufficient one. Channeling works only if the licensed product is attractive and competitive enough to pull players away from the grey market offer they already use. That is the single test against which every detail of this reform should be measured, and it is that detail via which the reform will succeed or fail.
The draft pairs liberalisation with a demanding set of parameters: a €2 stake limit per game, mandatory breaks after extended play, weekly deposit caps of €250 for players under 26 and €1,680 for everyone else without proof of means. Much will depend on how user-friendly the process of customising the various limits is. The tax rate of 45% of gross gaming revenue remains unchanged. A strong capitalisation requirement of €10m was introduced.
The conditions most likely to decide who can enter the market at all, however, sit elsewhere. Before a licence is granted, an operator must satisfy any outstanding enforceable Austrian court judgments against it and settle its Austrian taxes retroactively, covering the years it served the market without a domestic licence. For the offshore operators that have effectively run the Austrian market until now, this is the gate and it is straightforward.
Applying the deposit and stake limits is a question of economics; clearing these two conditions is a question of whether entry is possible at all. The question is now whether a licensed operator, bound by these limits and carrying this tax burden, will be able to offer a product that an Austrian player actually prefers to the grey market alternative? If the answer is yes, the reform will close the grey market. Players stay where the competitive product is.
Keep to the timeline
The government’s overall approach has become very clear from the draft law; the details are still under discussion. The genuinely open questions lie in the product rules. Deposit limits, stake and win limits, the treatment of jackpots and mandatory play breaks are the parameters still in play, and they are exactly the ones that decide how the licensed product compares to the grey market offer.
Here, the upcoming reform can benefit from the mistakes made by other countries that have already liberalised. On timing, the optimistic reading has the law entering into force by the end of 2026 or in early 2027, after the consultation phase, EU notification and the parliamentary process, though timelines of this kind regularly slip, not least during the TRIS (Technical Regulations Information System) standstill period. Licences should be issued by 2029 at the latest.
The success of the reform will depend largely on the upcoming consultation phase and, in particular, on how well decision makers take into account and implement the experiences of other EU member states. We expect a lively discussion among all stakeholders in the coming weeks and months.
The Austrian government has already made the most crucial decision, ending a monopoly that no longer reflected reality and was increasingly hard to justify under EU law. That decision deserves recognition. What it now needs is a clever calibration: a set of rules that protect players without making the regulated product unattractive.
Christian Rapani founded his law firm in 2013, specialising in gaming and betting law. He has extensive experience in advising national and international clients in all areas of gaming and betting law. Rapani advises with licensing procedures and national regulatory requirements, as well as litigious aspects of gaming and betting law
The post Opinion: Austria must learn from other EU countries ahead of market liberalisation first appeared on EGR Intel.
Rapani Rechtsanwälte founding partner Christian Rapani insists the Austrian government must get the shift away from the monopoly model right, or face a surge in the black market
The post Opinion: Austria must learn from other EU countries ahead of market liberalisation first appeared on EGR Intel.