German court rulings could open the door to online gambling refund claims

German players who lost money on unlicensed online casinos and slot games may now have a clearer path to sue for refunds. For PSPs and gambling operators, the important bit is not the headlines about “player rights” but the legal mechanism: if wagers were placed when the service was prohibited or lacked the required German license, the money may be treated as received without a valid legal basis.

1. The litigation has been strengthened by a decision from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and by proceedings before Germany’s highest civil court, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH). Together, those rulings could expose gambling companies to thousands of compensation claims over bets placed while their services were prohibited under German law.
2. One of the most closely watched cases involves Tipico Games, a Malta-based gambling operator. In September 2025, the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart ruled in favor of a player who had lost roughly EUR 10,000 ($11,200) between 2020 and 2022. The court said Tipico had received the money without a valid legal basis because online gambling was prohibited or restricted under the rules in force during that period.
3. Tipico appealed to the BGH, and at an initial oral hearing in September 2026 the court appeared to support a central argument from the player: gamblers may be able to reclaim losses incurred when an operator lacked the required German license. A final ruling is still expected only in January 2027.
4. The legal fight centers on Germany’s restrictions on online gambling before the new regulatory framework introduced in 2021. The point that matters for cross-border operators is straightforward: a license from another European Union country did not automatically authorize gambling services in Germany.
5. In April, the ECJ ruled that EU law does not stop member states from prohibiting certain gambling services or from attaching civil-law consequences to breaches of those restrictions. Thomas Dünchheim, a gambling law specialist at Greenberg Traurig, told DW that lawyers were already gathering claimants, including people who had lost tens of thousands of euros, and that legal financing firms could help package individual claims into larger proceedings.

One open issue is how courts will treat players who knowingly took part in unlawful gambling. Operators are expected to argue that such players should not recover their losses, and Dünchheim said that question could become a major point of dispute in individual cases.