Germany's gambling regulator says event betting cannot be licensed at all — and names geoblocking as the way out of scope
On 13 August 2026 Germany's Joint Gambling Authority of the Länder (Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder, GGL) published a new FAQ section setting out its position on Gesellschaftswetten and prediction markets. The authority states that Gesellschaftswetten — bets on the outcome of societal, political, economic or other events — are nicht erlaubnisfähig under German gambling law: not unlicensed, but incapable of being licensed at all. It gives as its reason for publishing the volume of enquiries it receives from consumers, media and other interested parties, and describes public information and prevention as part of its statutory remit.
Two points in the text carry beyond the restatement. The GGL says that a person taking part in such a bet from Germany "kann sich strafbar machen" — may render themselves liable to criminal penalty — and that organising or brokering one may be too, so the exposure reaches the participant and not only the operator. It does not name the provision it has in mind. And it sets out what takes an offering outside its supervisory assessment: where a provider effectively excludes participation from Germany and blocks its offering for the German market, the offering does not, on that basis alone, constitute an unlawful gambling offering in Germany. The test the authority names is accessibility — whether the offering is reachable from Germany and whether participation is made possible.
The legal position is not new; the GGL classified this category the same way when it joined a joint statement by nine European gambling regulators on 19 June 2026, alongside authorities from Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. What is new is its consolidation into standing public guidance, and the explicitness about geoblocking — the same instrument Ireland's regulator reached for in signal 002, now described by a second European authority as the thing that resolves the question rather than the thing that follows enforcement. The GGL also addresses the press directly, saying media may cover these markets journalistically but should inform readers that such bets cannot be licensed in Germany and that participation from Germany is not permitted. What the guidance does not establish is what effective exclusion requires in practice, or whether any named operator has been assessed against it.