DR. SARAFI Rechtsanwälte once again prevails against the Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder (GGL) — Criminal Division of the Landshut Regional Court rejects complaints from the public prosecutor's office and the GGL
From our press archive. This communication gives the status of the original publication of 10 November 2025 again. Subsequent developments in the process are not automatically taken into account.
Frankfurt/Main, November 10, 2025 — The Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder (GGL) has been under criticism for some time: In recent years, it has filed numerous unsuccessful criminal charges against various players in the gaming industry — in cases handled by us without exception. In doing so, the authority repeatedly acted in a role that is more reminiscent of a criminal court than an administrative authority.
In several letters of information to business partners and third parties, the GGL stated — and not subjunctively — that criminal offences had been fulfilled.
“In recent months, the Joint Gaming Authority of the federal states has increasingly tried to exploit the area of criminal law. We are experiencing an alarming mix of supervisory law and law enforcement that is neither constitutionally nor systematically sustainable,” explains Dr. Nik Sarafi, lawyer for IT and media law and gaming law expert from Frankfurt.
Several criminal proceedings against clients by DR. SARAFI Rechtsanwälte have already been discontinued in the preliminary proceedings under Section 170 (2) StPO — i.e. without payment of a monetary requirement. This revealed three recurring basic problems:
- International issues: Acts from abroad cannot be easily punished under German law — particularly if there is no criminal liability at the crime scene.
- Player resolution: The accused cannot easily be accused of intent in accordance with Section 285 StGB.
- Advertising fact: The GGL regularly interprets the facts of advertising (Section 284 (4) StGB) too broadly. Unlike administrative advertising, the term of advertising under criminal law must be used restrictively. Several public prosecutors have already agreed with this legal opinion of DR. SARAFI Rechtsanwälte.
A particularly sensational case
One particularly sensational case concerns criminal proceedings against a very well-known streamer. After the Landshut Public Prosecutor's Office discontinued the proceedings in June 2024 in accordance with Section 170 (2) StPO, the Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder filed an appeal. On the instructions of the Munich Attorney General's Office, the proceedings were reopened. Now the Landshut public prosecutor's office, which had previously discontinued the proceedings, has suddenly applied for a penalty order worth around 30,000€.
This shows that political influence cannot be ruled out here. The unusual course of the proceedings leads to the conclusion that the public prosecutor's decision to resume proceedings and apply for a penalty order — otherwise from the same public prosecutor — was not based solely on objective review of the law. Rather, the sequence of events indicates that pressure has been exerted by the supervisory authority or higher authorities.
Dr. SARAFI lawyers immediately objected to this measure — with success: The district court followed the defense's argument and refused to issue the penalty order in August 2025.
The public prosecutor filed an immediate appeal against this decision (Section 210 (2) StPO in conjunction with Section 311 StPO).
By order of November 6, 2025, the Landshut Regional Court dismissed the immediate appeal and fully agreed with the arguments of DR. SARAFI Rechtsanwälte. As a result, our law firm was able to achieve complete success in court at the latest in all cases in which the public prosecutor had not hired itself.
GGL's political dimension and institutional interests
It is remarkable that the Joint Gaming Authority of the Länder (GGL) has been working for some time to press ahead with the establishment of a nationwide focus public prosecutor's office for criminal gambling law. In order to underpin the political necessity of such an institution, the GGL appears to be striving to initiate as many investigations as possible — regardless of their actual prospects of success.
“We are observing a strategy that aims to create institutional justification through artificial process accumulation,” explains Dr. Nik Sarafi. “The more investigative cases are produced, the stronger the GGL can give the impression that criminal gambling law is a mass phenomenon that justifies its own focus public prosecutor's office, although most of these proceedings are discontinued after a short period of time. In any case, all proceedings conducted by us have been discontinued so far.”
This development raises fundamental questions of the rule of law. When investigations are conducted not out of objective need to prosecute, but to generate political legitimacy, the system of separation of powers falters. Criminal law must not be a tool for institutional self-expression.