The Supreme Court of the European nation of Austria (pictured) has ruled in favor of a former grey area online casino operator. It filed a lawsuit against a player claiming its gambling payouts should be given back.
The top court upheld a lower court’s decision that the player was liable to pay back at least some of the gambling winnings they had gained from the operator. The judge ruled that the plaintiff must pay legal fees and a nominal amount of what they had won from the online casino while gambling there in 2020, totaling €626.
Austria legalized online casinos in 2020 via a monopoly, state- run operation. That essentially shut down European grey market operators, who had previously legally offered services in the country from bases in the European Union.
Other countries in the bloc have also legalized online gambling in recent years in various forms. This has led to several lawsuits across the continent, as former players of now-unlicensed online casinos try to get their losses back. Or, in this case, the other way around.
The judge said that the illegality of the contracts for casinos that were not licensed in the country goes both ways, and that it was perfectly acceptable for operators to try to claim back losses, and not just players.
The Lawsuit
The unnamed gambling company was based in Malta. Under European Union rules, most operators licensed in one country can legally serve players in the others unless the country has specified its own online gambling rules.
In Austria, there is only one licensed online casino operator, Win2Day. When it was given the exclusive contract in 2021, most other European operators shut down online casino operations in the country.
For the few that did remain open, even if only for a little while, that opened them up to lawsuits from gamblers who had previously bet there, such as this successful lawsuit against operator Bwin in the Netherlands, which saw two gamblers paid back €450,000 (US $479,500).
However, in this case, the Austrian courts sided (partially) with the gambling operator.
The Maltese company sought to recover €7162 from the gambler, which was won in the summer of 2020. The Austrian court deemed that only a nominal amount of those winnings should be paid, plus the operator’s legal costs.
The judge said they did not want to encourage players to gamble with illegal operators and then sue the casinos afterwards to claim their losses back. But the court also didn’t want to legitimize illegal online casinos either.
“Every contractual partner can invoke the illegality and nullity of the contract,” the court documents said.
The result echoes the varying opinions on this matter across European countries. In another recent case, a Dutch gambler sued operator Bwin but lost, and was ordered to pay the Entain-owned company’s legal costs of €5443.
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
