“Anyone can win. But you—you want more,” says a commanding male voice in a commercial for the sports betting provider at the National Casino, accompanied by dramatic music. On-screen: young men cheering, carrying one of their friends on their shoulders. “The moment belongs to you—because you celebrate it because you can.”
On a Tuesday morning in April, just before 11 a.m., four men stand outside the Tipico betting shop on Treppenstraße in Bielefeld-Brackwede, smoking and waiting for the doors to open so they can place their bets. With over 1,000 branches across Germany, Tipico, the market leader in sports betting, allows people to bet on a wide variety of sporting events. Betting is available online 24/7, of course, but the shops are meant to serve as social hubs, where betting, passion for sports, and excitement become a shared experience.
430,000 People in Germany Affected by Problematic Gambling Behavior
In Brackwede alone—a district with around 40,000 residents—there are four additional betting shops, along with several slot machine casinos. Where there were once bakeries or clothing stores, shop windows are now covered with images of cheerful people gambling. The scene here resembles that of many German inner cities—and as elsewhere, criticism is growing. Years ago, the local paper Westfalen-Blatt already headlined: “Unchecked Growth of Betting Shops and Gambling Halls.”
From 2014 to 2019, sports betting boomed in Germany. Industry revenues rose from €4.5 billion to €9.3 billion. Due to the pandemic, revenue dropped in 2020 to €7.8 billion. Alongside the vast online offerings, there are also countless physical betting shops. Critics have long warned of the social consequences. According to a study by the Federal Centre for Health Education, about 430,000 people in Germany are affected by problematic gambling behavior or gambling addiction. Voices are starting to call for a ban on sports betting advertising, but for now, betting providers remain highly visible in commercials, on football jerseys, and large billboards.
Tipico. Vegas.
The primary target group for betting providers is young men—especially those with little money and big dreams. Another frequent criticism is that betting shops and gambling arcades tend to open in areas where socially disadvantaged populations are particularly vulnerable to the lure of gambling. In Bielefeld-Brackwede, the unemployment rate and the proportion of residents receiving social welfare benefits were only slightly higher than the average for Bielefeld overall in late 2020—but significantly higher than the German national average at the time.
Residents blame the abundance of betting shops in part on the decline of retail. “In the past, Brackwede had a shop for everything people needed. No one had to go into the city center,” says Frank Becker, owner of the long-standing stationery store Bröker. He was for many years the chairman of the Brackwede Business Association, which aimed to keep the shopping district attractive. Becker says that betting shops or gambling arcades now often move into empty stores. This trend is known in urban planning as the “trading-down effect”: once-lively shopping streets become lined with vacant shops—or places where gambling now takes place behind covered windows.
Sports Betting in Germany Is Regulated by the Federal States
For a long time, the state-run provider Oddset held a monopoly. The individual states supported this through their legislation—illegally, according to a 2006 ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court. This led to the 2008 Interstate Gambling Treaty, which, following a 2012 ruling by the European Court of Justice, evolved into the first Amended Interstate Gambling Treaty, ratified by all states except Schleswig-Holstein.
Under this treaty—initially valid for seven years—private sports betting providers were allowed to operate under certain conditions, and gambling advertising was permitted. Subsequent agreements further regulated the licensing procedures and online gambling sector.