Austria puts online gambling liberalisation to consultation, with July 15 deadline and €10m capital شرط

Austria has opened consultation on draft rules that would move online gambling from a closed model to a licensed market, with stakeholders given until July 15 to comment. For PSPs and acquiring teams, the important bit is not the political choreography; it is that the draft ties market access to AML, player-protection, capital, and payment-blocking requirements that can shape who can actually operate.

1. The coalition government wants the new framework in place for a market launch in October 2027. The consultation paper says any operator meeting the criteria may apply for a licence, but only if it maintains a supervisory board, complies with anti-money laundering and player protection rules, and holds minimum share capital of €10m.
2. The proposed licence fee for Austrian online gambling licences is €70,000. For land-based casinos, the number of licences would be set at 13 nationwide at the next tender, which keeps the land-based side tightly controlled even as online is opened up.
3. The draft also targets grey-market operators. Any operator active on the grey market would have to cease all offerings in Austria by January 1 2027 until its licence is approved, and any breach would trigger an 18-month bar on licensing. The framework also says licences will be restricted to operators based in jurisdictions where Austrian court rulings are enforceable.
4. That jurisdiction شرط appears aimed at Malta’s Bill 55, which is designed to shield MGA-licensed igaming operators from foreign legal claims, although the European Court of Justice appears to question its validity. The draft also says entry will require settlement of any outstanding tax debts and player protection claims, which is another filter that matters for operators with legacy exposure.
5. Payment controls are part of the package. Regulators would gain powers to block payments by blacklisting IBANs and issuing blocking orders to providers, while IP blocking would run through AWS, Cloudflare and Google. The consultation also proposes a centralised self-exclusion register covering all gambling except lotteries, plus player limits of €250 a week for customers aged 18–26, €1,680 a month for players over 26, €5 per stake, and €10,000 in winnings per play session.

The draft further requires each spin to last at least two seconds and imposes a mandatory break after 90 minutes of continuous play, although jackpot features would still be permitted. For payment providers, the practical takeaway is simple: Austria is designing the market with enforcement tools baked in, so onboarding decisions will need to track not just licence status but also court-enforceability, tax clearance, and the operator’s exposure to grey-market history.