Ronald Benter, Chairman of Germany’s regulator GGL, has reassured that better days are coming for the gambling sector after years of tricky regulatory adjustments.

At the December Online Gaming Summit Europe 2025, Benter touched on the regulatory prospects ahead of the licensed market which is currently in the process of revising the Interstate Treaty on Gambling 2021 (GlüStV 2021).

“The GGL is a young authority. Within just two years, we have built up systems that are unique in this form in Germany – and perhaps also internationally,” he said.

You don’t look so good…

Evaluation of the GlüStV 2021 is scheduled to conclude by the end of 2026 – with the core goal of introducing measures that would strengthen the effectiveness of player protection, advertising, channelisation rates and countering of the black market.

As revealed at the Gaming in Germany conference earlier this year, Germany is currently fighting an uphill battle against black market operators, with H2 Gambling Capital putting online gaming channelisation at between 22% and 25%, and at risk of going down to 20% by 2030.

Even Maarten Haijer, President of the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), said that Germany is lagging behind fellow European nations in terms of regulated gambling’s long-term sustainability – namely due to the need of a revised framework.

Benter further asserted that the GGL will not bend over backwards in an effort to fulfil GlüStV 2021’s evaluation deadline just for the sake of it, but will instead take a careful and methodical approach of consulting science and most importantly, all 16 German states, to achieve the best possible outcome.

“It’s not about publishing data as quickly as possible. It’s about making it reliable,” he added, emphasising that quality comes ahead of speed and promising results “based on reliable foundations”.

SBC News readers will be familiar with the comprehensive work of the GGL to implement the Interstate Treaty and subsequent policy measures – including a new market analysis strategy – since the regulator’s inception in 2021. 

Much of that work has revolved around gambling advertising and finding ways to promote legal play whilst protecting the vulnerable. A new advertising standard must be approved by all 16 states to become federal law.

“The GGL has come to be a strong and reliable regulatory authority for the online gambling market,” Benter concluded. “We know that finding common grounds is sometimes challenging. But it is necessary, and it is right.”