LG Ulm: player should receive a reimbursement of 170,000 Euro from online casino

In the past weeks and months, we have reported several times about the requests for reimbursement of casino losses. The players have often suffered losses and received no reimbursement. In a recent case, the District Court of Ulm has accepted the request for reimbursement of 170,000 Euro made by the player. How did it come up to this amount and what was the reason for the judge’s decision?

Many casino players in Germany are trying to recoup their casino losses from online gambling. Most of them argue that when the player signed the gambling contract, he or she was not aware and informed about the legal position. Since online gambling was illegal at the time of the contract, the same contract, which the gambler had entered in with the provider, should be declared null. Thus, accordingly they try to ask for a reimbursement of the losses. The several cases which we have reported about show that this is “no recipe for success”. Recently we had reported in an article, that the District Court of Wuppertal had refused to reimburse the casino losses.

District Court Ulm: Online Casino asked to reimburse 170,000 Euro

On the 25th. November of this year, the District Court Ulm has ordered the operator of an online casino to reimburse the player the casino losses. The high amount of the casino losses in this case was impressive. These amounted to around 170,000 Euro for a single player. The gambler claimed that in the past he had lost this amount on a German speaking internet site of the online casino. Now the casino, which has not been named, must reimburse this amount.

The District Court of Ulm has argued that the contract to exercise gambling according to § 134 German Civil Code was not correct. According to the State Gambling Act, the organisation of a public form of gambling on the internet was with a few exceptions, forbidden up to the 30^th. June 2021. For this reason, the online casino is obliged to reimburse the losses which have been incurred. The judges in Ulm insisted in their judgement that the contract was void. They insisted that the casino had received the stakes without legal grounds and thus it must refund the player all the losses incurred. The court has also insisted that it was not evident that the claimant was informed that one could not gamble on the internet at the time.

The Expert on Gambling Law, Dr. Gerrit W. Hartung, is also encouraging other players to request the reimbursement of losses incurred:

“According to German Law, the chances of getting a reimbursement of losses incurred from online games of chance are very high.”

However, the first appeal of this case shows that it could also have a different ending. The District Court of Bonn had here ruled as a second instance that the claimant must not be reimbursed the casino losses.

Has the claimant gambler really been reimbursed the 170,000 Euro?

We assume that till now the player has not yet received the promised reimbursement of 170,000 Euro from the online casino. The judgement took place at the end of November and thus the casino operator could basically still appeal. Besides this, another case shows that such a ruling by the court against the casino is no guarantee that the money will actually be reimbursed. In Summer we had reported that despite the ruling, a casino has still not reimbursed the gambling losses.

Requesting a reimbursement of casino-losses - a good idea?

In March of last year we had asked whether it is a good idea, to request a refund of the casino losses incurred. Then we had not only established that asking for reimbursement is not only immoral, but it also does not solve the underlying problem of problematic gambling behaviour.  In this case the player may under circumstances be liable to criminal punishment and it also damages the gambling industry.

Conclusion

The District Court of LG Ulm has ruled in a judgement of the 25th. November 2022, that an unnamed gambling company must reimburse the player who is suing it and demanding the sum of 170,000 Euro for casino losses incurred. The online casino was found to be infringing the ban on online gambling which was imposed by the “old” State Gambling Act. However, it is not yet known whether the losses have been reimbursed or whether they will actually be reimbursed.

Since the amount involved in the dispute is relatively high, we assume that most probably the player had a problematic gambling behaviour. Thus we fear that if this player is actually refunded the money, unless he or she receives professional help, once the legal and court fees have been deducted, he or she will most probably invest the money in gambling once again.

Image source: https://pixabay.com/de/photos/lady-justice-legal-gesetz-2388500/