Emergency legal protection in online gambling law: Halle Administrative Court orders suspensive effect

Frankfurt/Main, August 12, 2026 — With two decisions dated August 6, 2026, the Halle Administrative Court ordered the suspensive effect of actions against a prohibition order and a penalty payment based on this by the Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder. As far as can be seen, the Chamber is the first court in the Federal Republic of Germany to have met the factual requirements under which, according to the case law of the Higher Administrative Court of the State of Saxony-Anhalt, the provision of permission under the State Treaty on Gaming in 2021 loses its justification under EU law.

The subject matter of the proceedings (7 B 491/25 HAL and 7 B 492/25 HAL) is a prohibition against organising public gambling on the Internet in October 2022 and a penalty payment of 50,000 euros and ancillary claims imposed in September 2023. According to the decisions, both measures are no longer enforceable for the time being. Among other things, the applicant had been accused of not meeting the cross-provider monthly deposit limit of 1,000 euros in accordance with Section 6c (1) sentence 2 GlüStV 2021.

A second attempt in accordance with Section 80 (7) VwGO

The proceedings have a long history. A first urgent application against the prohibition order was unsuccessful in 2023; the applicant was represented elsewhere by a lawyer at the time. After taking over the mandate, the law firm has chosen Section 80 (7) VwGO. The provision allows a decision made in urgent proceedings to be amended if there are circumstances that have been amended or not claimed in the original proceedings without fault. Both alternatives are relevant here, and that is the crux of the matter: The situation supporting the decisions of August 6, 2026 already existed when the first urgent application was rejected. It was not visible from the outside.

The starting point: a court settlement from November 2022

On November 15, 2022, the Darmstadt Administrative Court recorded a comparison between the state of Hesse and two providers approved in the sports betting sector (ref. 3 K 1780/20.DA and others). It regulates three points that are central to today's discussion about the deposit limit.

• First, the settlement states that with the entry into force of the State Treaty on Gaming 2021, the betting limit set in the permit “has been replaced by law a deposit limit” and that the same applies to the levels of increasing the legal maximum limit provided for there.
• Second, the defendant acknowledges the “new qualified Schufa gambling query introduced by Schufa as a product” in the version as of 10/2022 as proof of wealth for increasing the limit to 10,000 euros.
• Thirdly, under the heading “Reliability,” it states that it is not interpreted as an indication of unreliability that the providers “failed to apply the contested limit rules until 30.09.2022.”

For the period from the entry into force of the State Gaming Treaty 2021 to the end of September 2022, there is therefore a court-logged agreement that the limit requirements have not been applied by these providers and that this is not blamed on them as unreliability. The rejection of the applicant's requests for permission on May 30 and October 5, 2022 and the prohibition order of October 20, 2022, which were based, among other things, on failure to comply with this same deposit limit. There are three weeks between the prohibition order and the recording of the settlement.

In addition, the settlement was not intended as an individual settlement from the outset. Under the heading “Uniform Administrative Practice”, the defendant undertakes to offer the same regulations on equal terms and conditions to “all approved and in the approval process” and to inform the industry about the content as part of future administrative practice. It should be possible to cancel it if 90 percent of the approved sports betting operators had not joined by January 1, 2023. The Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder, which assumed jurisdiction on 1 January 2023, should be offered to join immediately. The comparison was not published.

From a technical contribution to a court finding

Only the result was initially visible to the outside world, namely the Decision Guideline on deviating maximum amounts published in September 2023. On this basis alone, lawyer Dr. Nik Sarafi in a technical article dated February 6, 2024 with the title “The risky game for higher betting limits under GlüStV 2021 in light of the coherence case law of the ECJ” explained that the administrative practice of allowing deposit limits above the legal limit of 1,000 euros on the basis of a mere credit report does not reflect the economic capacity of a player and is therefore incompatible with the coherence case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The article concluded with the finding that it remains to be seen when a German court will submit the State Treaty on Gaming 2021 to the Court of Justice for review.

The law firm subsequently introduced this line of argument into administrative court proceedings and placed it before the Higher Administrative Court of the State of Saxony-Anhalt. By resolution of December 2, 2024 (3 M 169/24), the Senate took them up legally and formulated the relevant standard to this day: The permission requirement could no longer be justified if the existing enforcement deficit resulted in a systematic toleration of an expansion of supply contrary to permission by the competent authority. On the factual level, the Senate did not yet regard this requirement as proven; it assumed that it was an individual case and expected that the authority would quickly address any enforcement deficit.

The proof: scope of practice and continuation despite knowledge

This outlined the task of the following year and a half: to prove that this was not an isolated case. It was mainly managed with the documents of the authority itself.

Scope: In response to an application under the Saxony-Anhalt Information Access Act, the authority disclosed its increase practice in a decision dated May 13, 2026. According to this, it has permission concepts or applications from various permit holders, in which the SCHUFA-G query is expressly mentioned in each case or based on the substance; the increase notices were issued almost the same. In court proceedings, the authority itself has also submitted that it was it who worked towards uniform treatment and was based on the practice of other sectors. It publicly confirmed the procedure in its press release dated May 7, 2025: “One of the procedures that GGL allows is the Schufa-G query.” It was thus clear to what extent the handling already established in 2022 had actually been practiced.

Note: The Länder's interim report on the evaluation of the State Treaty on Gaming 2021 dated January 31, 2024 expressly states that the sole SCHUFA query to prove economic performance is “by no means sufficient.” In addition, there were parliamentary questions in February and May 2024 and the report by Investigate Europe and Monitor in March 2025. However, the opposite of a correction has happened: The content of the relevant decision-making directive was extended unchanged, most recently until December 31, 2026. The board of directors of the authority had stated before the Committee on Home Affairs and Sport of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament that the suitability of the SCHUFA-G query was “permanently” checked and that it would be in Third quarter of 2025 on results come. However, contrary to these promises and announcements, GGL continued its previous practice. In another procedure in May 2026, the authority offered a comparative text in which the SCHUFA query was expressly recognized as proof of assets.

The decisions of August 6, 2026

The 7th Chamber of the Halle Administrative Court now regards the actual requirement of the standard as met after summary review. It is based on the development of administrative practice since December 2024, including the unchanged content of the official decision guideline on the deposit limit for 2026.

The Board rejects the objection that a future change in administrative practice could remedy the situation retroactively: otherwise, it would be up to the Member State to grant itself a transitional period for a situation contrary to EU law retroactively. As regards the main proceedings, the Board notes that it will in all likelihood amount to a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union under Article 267 TFEU.

Classification

“The board has decided carefully and cautiously. It did not invent a new standard, but applied the existing standard of the Higher Administrative Court to a factual situation that has changed since December 2024,” says lawyer Dr. Nik Sarafi, who represents the applicant in the proceedings. “The situation at issue dates back to 2022; for a long time, it was only recognizable by its results, not by its system. In particular, this shows how long it takes for a legal thesis to be substantiated by facts. For our clients, the decisions are an important intermediate step, nothing more and nothing less. The actual questions will be answered in the main proceedings and probably in Luxembourg. ”

The decisions initially concern only the enforceability of the challenged decisions in individual cases. However, their reasoning concerns a question of general importance: whether and under what conditions a reservation of permission may be attached whose requirements are not enforced in enforcement. This question is raised not only in administrative law, but also in civil recovery proceedings and in criminal law, because Sections 284 et seq. StGB are linked to the administrative licensing regime.

pointers

Both decisions are interim relief decisions. They are based on a summary review of the factual and legal situation, do not make a final decision on the legality of the decisions and are not legally binding. The main proceedings are pending before the Halle Administrative Court.

About the law firm

Dr. SARAFI Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH, based in Frankfurt am Main, advises and represents in gaming law at the interface of administrative, union, civil and criminal law. Dr. Nik Sarafi is the author of the handbook “Criminal Gambling Law”, which will be published by C.F. Müller in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Press contact

DR. SARAFI Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH
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telephone +49 69 70793-660
info@sarafi.de
www.sarafi.de