German authorities have raided an alleged unlicensed online casino network that prosecutors say accepted €5.86 billion in wagers between July 2021 and December 2023. Five suspects are accused of providing online gambling services without the required German licences, principally through virtual-slot sites, and one alleged ringleader was arrested.
The searches covered 11 residential and commercial properties in Frankfurt, the Rhine-Main region and Cologne, with more than 100 police officers, prosecutors and tax investigators involved. GamblingNews, citing the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office, reported that the searches took place on Sept. 8 after an investigation lasting more than three years.
Prosecutors said the alleged activity began no later than July 2021 and continued into 2026. They have also opened proceedings over suspected gambling-tax evasion, estimating the tax loss in 2024 alone at €77.6 million. Authorities froze bank accounts, seized luxury vehicles and executed an asset-restraint order of about €82 million.
The wager total equates to an average of roughly €2.34 billion a year across the 30-month period measured by investigators. That annualised figure was more than half of the €4.57 billion in stakes recorded by Germany’s regulated online slots market during 2025, although the figures cover different periods and the former concerns an alleged illegal operation.
The case has intensified an industry dispute over the scale of unlicensed gambling. A study commissioned by the Joint Gambling Authority of the Federal States, or GGL, put unlicensed operators at about 23% of Germany’s online gross gaming revenue in 2024, equivalent to €547 million. A study commissioned by the German Online Casino Association, or DOCV, and the German Sports Betting Association, or DSWV, estimated the black market’s share at 56%.
Kevin O’Neal, a DOCV executive committee member, said the investigation’s figures did not fit the regulator’s estimates and called for regulatory reform. DSWV said enforcement should be coupled with efforts to make the regulated market more attractive to consumers, while advocating a reassessment of the official black-market estimate.
Germany is on track to complete its review of the Interstate Treaty on Gambling by the end of 2026, a process that could alter online-gambling rules and the approach to unlicensed operators.
