Germany’s gambling regulator, the GGL, has published quarterly data on gaming and betting stakes for the first time, marking the launch of a new reporting initiative designed to bring greater transparency to the country’s regulated gambling market.
According to the GGL, the aim of the Gambling Market Monitor is to give both policymakers and the public a clearer view of market developments and to provide an evidence-based foundation for ongoing evaluation of Germany’s Interstate Treaty on Gambling.
Licensed operators are required to submit their figures to the regulator, which will then aggregate the data and make it publicly available on a quarterly basis.
Q1/Q2 2025 figures
The first report covers the first two quarters of 2025 and reveals fluctuations across key verticals in both sports betting and online gaming.
Sports betting stakes fell from €2.18bn in Q1 2025 to €1.89bn in Q2 2025, representing a decline of around 13.5%.
Both retail and online channels were affected, with retail betting down 15.6% and online betting down 12.7%
By contrast, virtual slot games experienced a modest uptick, rising from €1.10bn in Q1 to €1.12bn in Q2, an increase of 1.5%.
Online poker saw a sharper decline, falling 9.8% sequentially to €184m, while online horse racing betting posted a 28% increase to €32m.
Taken together, stakes in the GGL’s regulated games of chance segment fell 8.2% overall to €3.22bn.
The report also provides figures from cross-border lotteries.
In the lotteries segment, class lotteries decreased by 4.9% sequetially to €58m.
Social lotteries remained largely stable, edging down just 0.6% to €313m. Commercial gaming brokerage also saw a slight dip, slipping 1.2% to €240m.
The GGL stressed that the Gambling Market Monitor is a work in progress and that future editions are expected to provide more comprehensive datasets and insights.
Questions over accuracy
The publication of quarterly figures comes against the backdrop of ongoing debates about the accuracy of official market data.
In its recently released 2024 Activity Report, the GGL detailed its oversight of 141 regulated providers and highlighted intensified enforcement against unlicensed operators, including more than 230 prohibition proceedings and the blocking of over 1,100 illegal websites.
Despite these measures, industry stakeholders remain sceptical about the regulator’s estimates of the unlicensed market.
The GGL places the share of unauthorised gambling at around 25% of online activity, but a 2023 study commissioned by two online gambling trade bodies suggested that only just over half of gambling in Germany takes place through licensed channels, implying the black market could be significantly larger.
Critics have also raised questions about the consistency of the regulator’s reporting. Tipico’s iGaming director, Christian Heins, for example, took to LinkedIn to criticise what he described as discrepancies between claimed enforcement milestones and actual data.
