DGerman cities and municipalities want to work together with legal arcade operators to reduce illegal gambling. In a joint discussion paper, which was previously available to the FAZ, the German Association of Cities and Municipalities (DStGB) and the umbrella association of the German slot machine industry advocate freeing arcades from stigma and ensuring that fewer players find their way into illegal arcades. “With the joint discussion paper we want to give constructive impulses on how legal gambling can be organized in cities and municipalities,” says the board spokesman for the slot industry, Georg Stecker. The aim is to counteract undesirable developments, such as the rampant black market or the restriction of urban planning options.
When it comes to the black market, the pressure for municipalities and regulatory authorities to act has been growing for several years and especially since the lockdowns of the corona pandemic. The slot machine industry estimates that there are currently between 40,000 and 50,000 slot machines, so-called entertainers or fun games, set up in Germany, which have been banned from commercial operation since 2006. Since around 2010, this number has decreased from more than 80,000 illegally installed devices.
A study from this year by IW Consult, which was commissioned by the slot machine industry, assumes that at the same time the number of legally installed slot machines will fall to 180,000 devices by 2022. In 2016 there were 264,000. The market share of illegal gambling in the stationary sector is said to have increased from 4 percent in 2012 to a range of 30 to 46 percent, as IW Consult assumes.
Young people don't come in per se
Particular emphasis is also placed on the social concept that legal arcades must present in accordance with the State Treaty on Gambling. Employees should be trained to recognize problematic behavior and encouraged to contact players at risk of addiction. The protection of those at risk of addiction and young people takes place primarily through strict control of players and the comparison of their names with the nationwide blocking system Oasis.
The general manager of the DStGB, Gerd Landsberg, has hopes for better cooperation between the various stakeholders: “Cities and municipalities have a great interest in strengthening the protection of minors when gambling and intensifying the fight against illegal gambling,” he says. “From a municipal perspective, it is important to be in constant communication with companies, the police and other actors in order to achieve these common goals.”
Municipalities are also likely to see tax revenue
In addition to protecting minors, cities and municipalities also have a direct financial interest in the operation of arcades. The entertainment tax is a municipal tax that also affects slot games. In 2019, 947 million euros were collected nationwide through slot machines. By 2021, the amount had fallen by a good half. The paper does not only blame the lockdowns and the increasing online slot gaming, which was permitted in Germany with the 2021 State Treaty on Gambling, to blame for this.
The paper also mentions the thinning out of legal arcades due to distance rules that are too strict. Here the paper calls for “more flexible handling of the minimum distance regulations in order to guarantee municipal planning sovereignty.” In compliance with all quality criteria and the protection of minors, the arcade should be “rethought” as a simple place for leisure activities.
Overcome gambling addiction
As a rule, no one among its representatives denies that the industry deals with a sensitive product. However, they offer a regulated way to channel “humans’ natural instinct to play”. It is always better to play with a legal provider than in the increasingly common café casinos or back rooms of bars.
We also want to be able to combat and control an increase in the number of gambling addicts, as described in the recently published gambling atlas by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Addiction and Drug Research and the University of Bremen, through better legal offerings. In any case: The atlas and the underlying survey from 2021 on gambling addiction are accused of errors in the methodology. While a 2019 survey by the Federal Center for Health Education found around 229,000 problematic and 200,000 pathological German gamblers, the numbers in the 2021 survey jump to 3.25 million Germans with risky behavior and 1.3 million with a gambling-related disorder .
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