Today, 17 September 2026, the First Civil Senate of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) held oral hearings in cases I ZR 216/25 and I ZR 78/25 from the “online gambling” case complex. Thousands of players, their legal representatives, litigation funders and, not least, the providers themselves have been waiting for this hearing for months. The Senate designated one of the two appeals on points of law heard today as a lead decision procedure (Leitentscheidungsverfahren) in order to settle the fundamental legal questions concerning the reclaiming of losses from illegal online gambling. Lawyer István Cocron of Cocron Rechtsanwälte, a law firm representing numerous injured players in the “online gambling” case complex, attended the hearing in person.
What is the case about?
In both cases, the defendants are providers based in Malta that offered online casino games via German-language websites. The claimants took part in these gambling offers, which were not licensed in Germany, and lost considerable sums of money. Although the providers held a licence from the Maltese gambling authority during the relevant period, they did not have a corresponding German licence. In one of the cases, the claimant assigned his claims to a litigation funder. Both players are now demanding that the respective providers repay the gambling losses they suffered.
The BGH is therefore dealing with a set of facts that has come up again and again in tens of thousands of cases before the German lower courts for years.
- Period up to 30 June 2021: Under Section 4(4) of the Interstate Treaty on Gambling 2012 (GlüStV 2012), organising public gambling on the internet was in principle prohibited without exception.
**Period from 1 July 2021: With the Interstate Treaty on Gambling 2021 (GlüStV 2021), online casino games became licensable in principle. However, they are subject to a licensing requirement. Anyone without a German licence therefore continues to act unlawfully. - Consequence under civil law: If the gambling contracts concluded are void under Section 134 of the German Civil Code (BGB), there is no legal basis for the stakes paid. Players can therefore reclaim them under Section 812(1) sentence 1, first alternative BGB.
In one lead decision procedure, both the Regional Court (LG) of Heilbronn (judgment of 12 February 2025, 8 O 128/24) and the Higher Regional Court (OLG) of Stuttgart (judgment of 29 September 2025, 5 U 113/25) ruled in favour of the claimant. With the appeal on points of law that was allowed, the defendant continues to seek dismissal of the claim.
In the second case, the affected player’s claim was initially granted in full. The court of appeal, however, subsequently dismissed the claim because the claimant had taken part in online gambling from abroad. Here, too, the claimant is now pursuing his claims further in appeal proceedings on points of law before the BGH.
The points of dispute that matter today:
International jurisdiction and applicable law: Do the German courts remain competent, and does German substantive law continue to apply, if the claims have been assigned to a litigation funder?
Section 817 sentence 2 BGB: Under this provision, a claim for repayment may be excluded if the person making the payment has also violated a statutory prohibition or public policy. Providers regularly argue against players that they themselves acted in breach of the prohibition by taking part. The court of appeal rejected this objection.
Limitation and Section 852 BGB: For losses incurred before 1 January 2021, the OLG assumes a so-called residual damages claim (Restschadensersatzanspruch). Put simply, this means that if someone has obtained something through a tort, what was obtained can, under certain conditions, still be reclaimed even if the actual claim for damages is already time-barred. In this case, a considerably longer period of ten years applies.
Section 4(4) GlüStV 2012 as a protective law: A claim under Section 823(2) BGB, and therefore also the application of Section 852 BGB, requires that the provision serves to protect the individual player.
Cases with a foreign element: Can injured players also assert their losses before German courts if they took part in online gambling from abroad during individual gambling periods?
- Litigation funding: Is the assertion of gambling losses precluded if the proceedings are financed by a litigation funder and the claims have been transferred to the funder by way of a so-called security assignment (Sicherungsabtretung), while the player is at the same time authorised, by way of Prozessstandschaft, to continue enforcing the claims in court in his own name?
The preliminary question of EU law has been settled.
By order of 17 February 2026, the Senate initially stayed the proceedings pending a decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in case C-440/23. The CJEU answered the referral by judgment of 16 April 2026: according to it, EU law does not, in principle, preclude Member States from prohibiting certain forms of online gambling in order to channel gambling into controlled forms and to counteract the emergence of black markets.
Each Member State may set its own level of protection. A licence granted in another Member State therefore does not automatically entitle a provider to operate a gambling offer that is prohibited in Germany. Particularly relevant for the German repayment proceedings is that EU law precludes neither the legal consequences of such a prohibition from taking effect nor the nullity of contracts concluded in breach of the national prohibition. Consumers can therefore, in principle, reclaim the stakes they lost even after a later change in the legal situation.
This removes one of the providers’ key lines of defence. What remains open now are, above all, the national legal questions that the Senate addressed in today’s hearing.
Why this hearing matters far beyond the individual case
By order of 19 May 2026, the Federal Court of Justice designated the case as a lead decision procedure under Section 552b of the German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO). This instrument allows the court hearing the appeal on points of law to select a case whose legal questions are relevant to a large number of other disputes. The numerous parallel cases pending before the Senate, which had already been stayed in connection with case C-440/23, are to be stayed again until the lead case has been concluded.
Today’s oral hearing therefore sets a key course for the entire complex of repayment actions relating to online casino games.
An important distinction: online sports betting is not the subject of today’s proceedings. On that issue, the Senate made a separate referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union by order of 25 July 2024. The case pending there has the case number C-530/24, and the corresponding online sports betting cases remain stayed until that decision is given.
What does this mean for affected players?
For losses from online casino games with providers without a German licence, a ruling by the highest court on the relevant legal questions is imminent.
Proceedings that are already under way are expected to be stayed until the decision in the lead case. In principle, this should not put affected players at a disadvantage, as the limitation period is suspended in the meantime.
- If you have not yet asserted your claims, you should have the individual limitation periods checked in good time so that possible claims are not lost because the limitation period has expired.
From the courtroom
In the lead decision procedure, the Presiding Judge of the BGH stated that the Senate continues to assume that the provisions of the GlüStV 2012 and the GlüStV 2021 requiring a German gambling licence are both prohibition laws and protective laws.
According to the BGH’s provisional legal view, this means that injured online players can continue to assert repayment claims up to ten years retroactively, regardless of when they became aware of their claims.
The BGH also indicated that the “circular resolution of the federal states” (Umlaufbeschluss der Länder), repeatedly cited by the opposing side, does not give providers any guarantee of protection against civil-law claims. According to the player’s lawyer, the circular resolution at most assured providers that a licence applied for later would not be refused solely because of their earlier offering of illegal gambling and the resulting breaches of the law.
However, no protection against players’ repayment claims could be derived from this. It was incomprehensible why profits from offering illegal online gambling should remain with the provider if the gambling offer was made without the required German licence during the relevant period, the claimant’s representative continued.
The BGH also commented on the question of litigation funding. According to the court, the claimant loses neither his standing to sue (Aktivlegitimation) nor the consumer forum establishing the jurisdiction of German courts if the proceedings are financed by a litigation funder and the funder authorises the player, by way of Prozessstandschaft, to continue asserting the claims in court in his own name.
During the oral hearing, the BGH also announced that it would set the date for pronouncing its decision so that the CJEU’s decision on “online sports betting (C-530/24)”, still pending at that time, will already have been handed down. This is intended to avoid possible contradictions between the BGH’s decision and a later decision of the CJEU.
According to the Presiding Judge of the BGH, the pending CJEU decision on online sports betting is expected before the end of 2026.
From lawyer Cocron’s point of view, the outcome of the oral hearing in the lead decision procedure can therefore be summarised as follows: the BGH continues to assume that losses from online gambling offers not licensed in Germany can, in principle, be claimed against the respective providers up to ten years retroactively.
Because the sports betting case is still pending before the CJEU, a BGH judgment is expected at the earliest in early 2027.
After a short break, the second case was called. It focused on the question of whether injured online players can assert their losses before German courts even if they took part in gambling partly from abroad.
This question is of considerable importance for a large number of ongoing cases. Until now, providers have sometimes successfully defended themselves by arguing that, during a holiday for example, players took part in the online gambling offers of the various providers not licensed in Germany during the relevant period not from Germany but from their respective location abroad.
In its provisional assessment, the BGH took the view that the decisive factors are where the player opened his player account and where his “habitual residence” was during the relevant gambling period.
If the player account was opened in Germany and the player’s habitual residence – usually his place of residence – was also in Germany, occasional stays abroad should not prevent repayment claims against unlicensed providers. In the BGH’s view, German courts could therefore also cover losses incurred during such stays abroad.
The BGH reasoned that the negative consequences of taking part in illegal online gambling – such as gambling addiction, financial difficulties or social problems – generally do not take effect at the holiday destination but at the player’s habitual residence in Germany after his return. Given the protective purpose of the GlüStV provisions, it is therefore consistent to extend their scope to such participation from abroad.
These statements are in line with the CJEU’s recent decision in the “Wunner” case (C-77/23), which likewise focused not on the player’s actual location but on his habitual residence.
The BGH decisions now due following today’s oral hearings are likely to be significant for a large number of ongoing repayment proceedings and could create additional grounds for argument there when enforcing such claims before the lower courts.
We will report further as soon as the decisions are available.
