The operator gained an online gaming licence from Germany’s new gambling regulator.
Germany.- Zeal has launched its online games in Germany after its subsidiary Lotto24 AG gained an online gambling licence from Germany’s gambling regulator in April. Zeal says that it intends to increase the number of games by up to 200 by the end of the year.
Zeal CEO Helmut Becker said: “The German licence enables us to create entirely new gaming experiences. Our determined investments in this business are now paying off. Zeal’s clear focus remains online lottery brokerage. With online games, however, we now have another product area that should quickly gain weight.”
Meanwhile, the Zeal Instant Games subsidiary is making its portfolio available to independent service providers such as Lotto Hessen and US-based Park Avenue Gaming.
Zeal Instant Games managing director Julian Tietz said: “We are aware of the risk for players of addiction. That’s why our clear claim is: we want to offer the highest standard of legal and safe gambling and nothing else; whether in lotteries or online games.
“That’s why we go beyond regulatory requirements in online games and work with innovative AI applications, among other things, to maximize security for our players.”
German sports betting association welcomes increase in self-exclusions
The German sports betting trade association DSWV has welcomed the increase in the number of self-excluded players in the country. It says the rise in self-exclusions is the result of improved player protection measures among operators.
The number of people registered on the OASIS system has increased from 47,000 in 2020 to 192,600. Some German media had been critical of the increase in self-exclusions in the last three years, suggesting that it showed that the opening of Germany’s gambling market under new legislation in 2021 had led to more people struggling with problem gambling.
Some media and politicians had argued that the rise in self-exclusions meant that there was more problem gambling. However, the DSWV said this conclusion was a misinterpretation. It argues that the rise is because more operators are integrating with OASIS after the system expanded beyond the states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate in 2021.
