Police union (GdP) wants to take action against illegal gambling

The German Police Union (GdP) is calling for more specialised investigators to be deployed in the fight against illegal gambling. So far, the situation in many federal states is such that police detectives have to deal with other areas of crime in addition to illegal gambling, meaning that they cannot focus solely on this issue. But do we really need more specialised CID investigators in this area?

It was only in April of this year that we reported on the latest police statistics, according to which there has recently been a significant increase in unauthorised gambling in Germany. To be more precise, there were 5,281 cases of unauthorised gambling last year. By comparison, there were 947 cases in 2019. As providers of illegal gambling earn billions in this country, the GdP believes that the police need to specialise accordingly in order to increase the pressure to investigate.

GdP: Hardly any police officers specialising in illegal gambling

In a press release dated 28 August, the GdP criticises, among other things, the fact that there are hardly any chief investigators for illegal gambling in the individual federal states. As a result, police officers usually have to deal with other areas of crime at the same time and are therefore less specialised. The GdP is therefore calling for a significant increase in the number of criminal police investigators as well as intensive further and advanced training programmes to ensure that police officers always have the latest knowledge.

According to the GdP, it is also necessary for the investigating authorities to work together with other federal states to take action against the criminals involved in illegal gambling. As recently as this summer, we reported on GambleJoe that the LKA criticised the lack of resources against illegal gambling in NRW.

Complex legal situation must be simplified

The police union also criticises the fact that the legal situation is currently too complex. This makes the work of police officers unnecessarily difficult and in some cases obstructs them. The primary aim should be to make the police's work easier so that they can better investigate those behind the crimes and massively restrict the illegal earning opportunities for the perpetrators.

As illegal gambling is often organised crime, it must also be ensured that OC structures can be dismantled quickly and sustainably. For example, the GdP proposes giving the police additional investigative tools such as telecommunications surveillance.

At the beginning of this year, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) demanded that involvement in illegal gambling should only be considered an administrative offence in future. Until now, this has been a criminal offence. However, operators of illegal gaming machines will still be liable to prosecution in future.

Offenders are often only sentenced to fines in court, which is not much of a deterrent as the offenders usually ‘recoup’ the fines with their illegal machines within a very short time. In August, we reported on GambleJoe that turnover in amusement arcades is declining and that criminals are also profiting from this.

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