Financial specialists among the German CDU/CSU Party have hatched a plan to quadruple the country's sports betting income by levying a tax on sports betting.
The proposal is for a 12 to 15 percent tax on turnover, and Mike Mohring, the relating financial policy speaker of the CDU fraction in the state of Thuringia, says it would raise around 100 million euros per year.
Mohring heads all the financial speakers of all political parties represented in the federal states and in the German Parliament, and with control of 35.2 percent of Parliament, the CDU/SCU is Germany's biggest political party. The committee Mohring oversees has demanded that the national sports betting monopoly be abolished in favor of an open market with a strong tax system.
Meanwhile, the budget and fiscal policy spokespersons of the Union party groupings in the federal states and the CDU/CSU grouping in Parliament resolved at a meeting in Stuttgart Monday that the lottery market is to remain unchanged, as it is already regulated in a state treaty established in 2004.
The terms of a liberalized sports betting market are to be drawn up in a separate state treaty. The Union parties' spokespersons have consequently followed the lead given by the CDU grouping in the Kiel state parliament, which in March presented draft legislation on the liberalization of the sports betting market.
Commercial operators targeting the German market are encouraged by the latest developments.
"We expressly welcome the Union's decision," FLUXX AG managing board spokesman Rainer Jacken said. "It shows that common sense and economic realism are increasingly gaining ground in connection with the planned state treaty on gaming.
"We believe court rulings and political opinions are coming to acknowledge the grave concerns already voiced by the EU Commission. Nobody now wants to be made responsible for a sharp but unnecessary slump in revenue and the impending legal chaos in both Germany and Europe.
"We citizens are called to abide by the law, and quite rightly so. We should therefore be able to expect our politicians to do likewise. This wise resolution by the Union parties' fiscal policy spokespersons now means that the German gaming market can be reorganized in an intelligent manner."