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An estimated 2.3 percent of the German population aged 18-70 years can be classified as having a “gambling disorder”, according to a country-wide gambling survey aimed at evaluating player protection measures.
The Gambling Survey 2021 was undertaken by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Addiction and Drug Research (ISD) and the University of Bremen (gambling research unit). The pair will also produce a survey in 2023 and 2025.
Results from the survey led the researchers to call on state regulators to take into account the risks of different gambling products, urging them to introduce more player protection measures for these products.
Reflecting the reality of this mindset in Germany, the state of Thuringia’s parliament passed amendments to its casino act (ThürSpbkG) on March 17, 2022, approving the creation of a state-run online casino games monopoly.
In a notification sent to the European Commission in November 2021 about the law change, the German state said the risk posed by online casino games means they should be offered by the state to ensure it is “manipulation-free and moderate”.
Researchers from the latest gambling survey also said “educational materials and staff training for the early detection of gambling problems should be part of a package of measures to protect vulnerable gamblers in all forms of gambling and gambling settings”.
Out of the respondents to the survey that gambled, 12.8 percent play at least once a week, 3.5 percent play two to three times a month, 5.4 percent once a month and 7.9 percent less than once a month.
Just over 20 percent of respondents play only one form of gambling, 6.1 percent play two, 2.1 percent play three and just 1.4 percent use four or more types of gambling products.
Land-based gambling remains the most popular form of gambling, with 12.1 percent playing exclusively at them, compared with 9.7 percent of people that only gamble online. Only 6.1 percent play both on and offline.
Awareness of the dangers of gambling is relatively high at 78.3 percent.
Almost 70 percent of respondents want gambling advertising to be restricted, with 30.1 percent of all respondents seeing a gambling-related advertisement in the last 30 days.
Just over 90 percent of respondents without a gambling disorder said advertising had no effect on them, compared with 41.2 percent of respondents with a gambling disorder that said advertising makes them try new gambling products.
Although there have been previous German gambling surveys, this one was conducted just months after the German State Treaty on Gambling came into force on July 1, 2021.
The methodology is not the same as previous years, making comparisons to old surveys that were produced from 2007 to 2019 difficult.
The German Lotto and Totoblock (DLTB), a group of 16 independent lottery companies in the federal states, helped to fund the survey.
The survey results were gathered from 12,303 online questionnaires and phone interviews from German-speaking people aged between 16 and 70 years.
