Are online casinos legal in Germany? Slots, table games and the rules

The short answer

Germany’s 16 states regulate gambling together through the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag 2021 (GlüStV 2021), in force since July 1, 2021. It made online slots, online poker and sports betting legal for the first time nationwide, under licences from a joint regulator based in Halle, the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder (GGL). You must be 18 or over, and only the operators on the GGL’s official whitelist may offer you real-money games.

What the treaty calls online casino games is narrower than you might expect:

That’s why most licensed German sites offer slots only, and why they call themselves an online “Spielothek” (arcade): § 22a Abs. 11 bans slot licensees from describing their offer as a “Casino”.

The rules every licensed slot site follows

The GlüStV 2021 sets the same rules for every licensed slot site, and the GGL approves each game:

• Stake: at most €1 per spin as a rule (§ 22a Abs. 7). Since July 1, 2026, a GGL guideline lets operators raise it to €3 for players aged 21+, and to €5 for players who’ve passed a 90-day period without problematic play, until the end of 2027. It’s optional, and €1 stays the default.
• Speed: a spin must last at least 5 seconds on average (§ 22a Abs. 6), and every spin needs its own click: autoplay is banned (§ 22a Abs. 4).
• No jackpots and no multitasking: stakes and winnings may not feed a jackpot (§ 22a Abs. 8), and you can’t play two slots at once (§ 22a Abs. 10).
• Transparency: each game must show its return to player (RTP) and its top-prize odds (§ 22a Abs. 3).

Limits that follow you across sites

The treaty’s player protection works across operators, through a central system run by the GGL called LUGAS:

• €1,000 a month in deposits, across all sites. At sign-up you set a monthly deposit limit that applies to all licensed online gambling combined, at most €1,000 (§ 6c). Raising your own limits takes 7 days; lowering them is immediate. Operators may allow up to €10,000 a month, and for no more than 1% of their players up to €30,000, only after checking your income with documents.
• One site at a time. You can’t play at two operators simultaneously, and after logging out you wait 5 minutes before playing elsewhere (§ 6h).
• Panic button. Every game screen has a button that locks you out for 24 hours, with no confirmation question (§ 6i Abs. 3).
• OASIS. The national self-exclusion register, run by the state of Hesse, blocks you from all licensed gambling for at least 3 months, or a year by default. See our guide to gambling help in Germany.

Table games: only in Schleswig-Holstein and Bavaria

Online table and live games are the one product the GGL doesn’t license: § 22c lets each state either run them itself or grant as many licences as it has land-based casinos. As of October 2, 2026, only two states had done so:

• Schleswig-Holstein licensed four private operators in September and November 2024: Merkur (merkur-spiel.de), Novoline (casino.novoline.de), DrückGlück (drueckglueck.de/casino) and Tipico (casino.tipico.de and its Goldrummel brand).
• Bavaria runs spielbanken-bayern-online.de through its state casino administration, licensed in January 2024.

Their table games are only for players in those states. Everywhere else in Germany, an online roulette or blackjack table isn’t legal, even at a licensed slot site.

What about sites without a German licence?

Offshore casinos with licences from Malta, Curaçao or elsewhere aren’t legal in Germany, whatever they advertise. The GGL can order them shut, block their payments, and since 2025 has had their sites taken down: by the end of 2025, 1,843 illegal websites could no longer be reached from Germany because of its orders. In September 2026, the GGL welcomed an investigation by Frankfurt prosecutors, with an arrest and asset seizures, into illegal gambling offers that processed about €5.86 billion in stakes between July 2021 and the end of 2023, and warned players explicitly against illegal sites such as Platincasino. Advertising unlicensed gambling is a crime under § 284 Abs. 4 of the Criminal Code.

How to check a site

1. Look it up on the whitelist. The GGL’s Übersicht erlaubter Anbieter lists every licensed operator and the exact web addresses its licence covers. Our German licence check searches it for you.
2. Check the home page. Licensed sites must state on their home page that they hold a German licence and which authority issued it (§ 6e Abs. 3).
3. Watch for the warning signs: autoplay, jackpots, stakes above €5 a spin, or roulette offered outside Schleswig-Holstein or Bavaria all mean the site isn’t playing by German rules.

Our ranking of the best online slot sites in Germany compares the licensed operators.