Gambling Lawsuits in European Union (CJEU): Every Case, Court and Settlement

27 gambling cases decided or pending at EU level are on record as of 14 November 2026: 23 judgments, 3 dismissed actions and 1 pending matters, among them the Bill 55 reference C-683/24 with a judgment date reported for 19 November 2026 by a German legal news service and not confirmed on curia.

What has the Court actually told national judges to do? It has said that each Member State may restrict gambling if its policy is coherent, and since 16 April 2026 that Germany may void pre-2021 online casino contracts.

The cases fall into three lines: national monopolies and licensing, player refunds and their enforcement, and tax and state aid.

Dates are judgment dates; three 2006 to 2009 infringement judgments carry the year only because the day is not confirmed; checked 14 November 2026.

Can players recover losses under EU law? What the Court of Justice has decided

No judgment of the Court of Justice has ever ordered a gambling operator to pay a player: the Court answers questions of EU law, and the money, where any flows, is ordered by the national court afterwards.

What the Court did decide on 16 April 2026 in C-440/23 is that EU law does not stand in the way of a German court voiding pre-July-2021 online casino contracts with a Malta-licensed operator and ordering the stakes back. Each national record is on gambling lawsuits by country.

Two 2026 judgments shaped how a claim travels. In C-77/24 (15 January 2026) the Court held that a player's action against the directors of a foreign provider falls under Rome II and that the damage is deemed to occur in the player's home state, so Austrian law applies as a rule.

In C-198/24 (21 May 2026) it held that a court asked for a European Account Preservation Order may weigh a debtor's conduct over several years and a law in the debtor's state that impedes enforcement.

The table lists the only sums on record at EU level; every one is a fine, a levy, a concession fee or a state-aid top-up, and none is a payment to a player.

Enforcement is the open front. Austrian refund judgments have been refused in Malta under Article 56A of the Gaming Act, and the Court's judgment in C-683/24 is reported for 19 November 2026 by a German legal news service, a date not confirmed on curia.

An Advocate General's opinion proposes, only the Court's judgment decides. The German side of the refund wave is covered in online casino refund litigation in Germany and Austria.

Class actions and mass claims: how a player case reaches Luxembourg

There is no class action before the Court of Justice: every gambling case on this page arrived as a preliminary reference from one national court in one dispute, as a Commission action against a Member State, or as an appeal against a Commission decision.

The German and Austrian refund waves, about 50,000 claims in total according to a 2025 press estimate that is not court-verified, reach Luxembourg through references made since 2023:

• C-440/23: the Maltese Civil Court, First Hall; judgment 16 April 2026.
• C-530/24: the Bundesgerichtshof; Advocate General's opinion 19 March 2026, no judgment date set.
• C-683/24: an Austrian court (the Handelsgericht Wien per secondary reports); judgment reported for 19 November 2026.
• C-198/24: a preservation-order case on an Austrian judgment; judgment 21 May 2026.
• C-77/24: the Oberster Gerichtshof; judgment 15 January 2026.
• C-574/24: the Oberlandesgericht Wien; pending.

In Germany the lead case is before the Bundesgerichtshof (I ZR 216/25), with a verdict set for 28 January 2027, and an earlier case (I ZR 53/23) was stayed on 10 January 2024 to await the Court's answer.

The reasoning German courts apply when these cases return home is set out in why German courts order online casinos to refund losses.

Regulator, Commission and state cases in court

The Commission's gambling record runs from infringement judgments against Greece and Spain between 2006 and 2009 to one pre-litigation file against Malta opened on 18 June 2025, and it has defended its own state-aid decisions on gambling taxes and exclusive rights.

Which of these is still open? Only the Malta file and the Italian appeal after C-421/24. In the Malta file the Commission sent its letter of formal notice on 18 June 2025 over Article 56A of the Gaming Act, which Malta had two months to answer, and the Malta Gaming Authority replied that the law is not a blanket ban. Whether a reasoned opinion has followed is not confirmed in the record.

Pending: the Bill 55 infringement and the four open references

1 EU-level gambling matters are pending as of 14 November 2026: the Commission's infringement INFR(2025)2100 against Malta, with no reasoned opinion reported; C-683/24 on Article 56A, judgment reported for 19 November 2026; C-530/24 on Tipico's German sports bets, judgment not scheduled; C-574/24 on where an Austrian player's loss occurs when he sues Flutter as group parent; and the Italian appeal after C-421/24. The enforcement question behind the first two is explained in Malta Bill 55 and the enforcement of Austrian and German judgments.

Two Advocate General opinions frame the open references. On 23 April 2026 the Advocate General found the C-683/24 reference inadmissible but called a general enforcement bar like Article 56A manifestly incompatible with Brussels I bis; on 19 March 2026 the opinion in C-530/24 favored refunds unless the authorities had given precise, unconditional assurances, with Tipico's license dated 9 October 2020. The Maltese court record is on gambling lawsuits in Malta.

C-574/24 was lodged on 27 August 2024 by the Oberlandesgericht Wien and asks whether the Wunner reasoning of C-77/24, damage in the player's home state under Rome II Article 4(1), carries over from directors to the parent company; no outcome is on record.

The open appeals across all courts are on pending appeals and high court gambling cases.

Next dates, each with its source status:

• C-683/24: judgment reported for 19 November 2026 by a German legal news service, not confirmed on curia.
• C-530/24: no judgment date set after the opinion of 19 March 2026.
• C-574/24: no hearing or opinion on record.
• INFR(2025)2100: no reasoned opinion reported as of 14 November 2026.
• Italy after C-421/24: the Consiglio di Stato decides the appeal, no date on record.

Court of Justice rulings: the timeline

The table lists every EU-level gambling judgment on record from Schindler on 24 March 1994 to AGCOM v Google on 16 July 2026, newest first, with the court that asked the question and the answer in one line.

The German and Austrian line, Gambelli to C-198/24

The German and Austrian judgments run in one direction: a Member State may keep a monopoly or a ban on online casino games if its policy is coherent and really aims at player protection, it never has to recognize a Maltese license, and since 16 April 2026 it may also let its courts void the contracts and order the stakes back.

The line runs through Winner Wetten, Stoß and Carmen Media (8 September 2010), Engelmann (9 September 2010), Dickinger and Ömer (15 September 2011), Pfleger (30 April 2014), Digibet (12 June 2014), Ince (4 February 2016), Online Games (14 June 2017), Fluctus (18 May 2021), MT (14 October 2021), Wunner (15 January 2026), C-440/23 (16 April 2026) and C-198/24 (21 May 2026). Metropol and Leo-Libera add the German VAT and tax points.

The Italian concession line, Zenatti to the bingo fees

The Italian judgments mostly concern one bookmaker, Stanleybet, whose exclusion from the 1999 tender produced criminal references for twenty years while every tender it challenged was upheld.

The first, Zenatti (21 October 1999), opened the line; Gambelli (6 November 2003) and Placanica (6 March 2007) tested the exclusion; Costa and Cifone (16 February 2012, the Bersani tender) and Biasci (12 September 2013, police authorization) followed.

Stanley (22 January 2015, the Monti tender; 19 December 2018, the Lotto tender) and Sisal and Stanleybet (2 September 2021, the instant-lottery renewal) came next, and Admiral (22 September 2022), OL (16 March 2023) and Anib (20 March 2025) turned to levies and fees.

The national follow-up was uniform: the Consiglio di Stato rejected Stanley's Lotto appeal in August 2019, the Sisal and Stanley appeals in January 2022 and the levy appeals in April 2025.

Nordic, Dutch, Belgian, Greek, Hungarian, French, Spanish and UK rulings

The remaining judgments test monopolies and taxes from a UK customs seizure of German lottery mailings in 1994 to Madrid, and the 2024 and 2025 rulings moved the frontier from free movement to VAT and state aid: Belgium may charge VAT on online games while exempting lotteries, and the Commission must re-examine the Dutch lottery licenses after losing C-59/24 P.

Läärä (21 September 1999) and Lindman (13 November 2003) came from Finland, Unibet (13 March 2007) and Sjöberg and Gerdin (8 July 2010) from Sweden, and Betfair and Ladbrokes (3 June 2010) from the Netherlands.

Liga Portuguesa (8 September 2009), Zeturf (30 June 2011), Stanleybet v Greece (24 January 2013) and Berlington (11 June 2015) completed the national picture, with the Commission's own Greek and Spanish cases from 2006 and 2009.

The numbers: cases by type, outcome and referring country

The 27 records split into 14 operator challenges to national rules, 4 player or taxpayer cases, 2 criminal references, 3 regulator or Commission actions, 2 infringement and monopoly cases and 2 appeals, and 27 of them carry a status read from the judgment or the Court's own release.

The table below gives the national hubs where the referring courts' own judgments are recorded, because each answer from Luxembourg returns to a national court that applies it to the facts of the dispute.

Cases by category

Licensing and monopoly questions make up the largest group, 12, followed by the German and Austrian refund references, 2, and gambling tax, 9.

Courts, databases and how to read an EU citation

A Court of Justice case number reads C-440/23: C for the Court of Justice (T for the General Court, E for the EFTA Court), 440 for the order of registration, 23 for the year it was lodged, and a trailing P marks an appeal against a General Court judgment, as in C-59/24 P.

Judgments also carry an ECLI in the form ECLI:EU:C:yyyy:nnn and a CELEX number such as 62023CJ0440, where 6 marks case law, the year follows and CJ a judgment.

Press release numbers read PR 53/26, and the file name reads cp260053. Joined cases share one judgment, so C-475/20 to C-482/20 is a single ruling on eight references from the Consiglio di Stato.

InfoCuria and EUR-Lex are script-walled to automated readers, so this record cites the Publications Office CELEX pages and the Court's press releases. The full list by country sits on Court of Justice gambling judgments: the full list by country.

Every case we track

The table lists all 27 EU-level gambling cases in the record as of 14 November 2026 with case number, chamber, the court that asked or the party that sued, the date of the ruling and the primary source we read.

The same rows can be downloaded as a CSV from open data: download the case database.

Questions people ask

Did the Court rule that German players get their losses back?

Not directly: on 16 April 2026 the Court held in C-440/23 that EU law does not preclude Germany's pre-2021 ban, the nullity of the contracts or a restitution action, and that playing on a Malta-licensed site is not an abuse of EU law; whether a given player is repaid is decided by the German court, with the BGH's lead case set for 28 January 2027. The case page is C-440/23 European Lotto and Betting.

When does the Court decide on Malta's Bill 55?

The judgment in C-683/24 is reported for 19 November 2026 by a German legal news service, a date not confirmed on curia at our last check, and the Advocate General proposed on 23 April 2026 that the reference is inadmissible while calling a general refusal rule like Article 56A manifestly incompatible with Brussels I bis. The law and the infringement are explained in Malta Bill 55 (Article 56A Gaming Act).

What is the Tipico sports betting reference (C-530/24) about?

C-530/24 asks whether a German court may void sports bets placed between 2013 and 9 October 2020 with Tipico, which had applied for a German concession in a procedure later found contrary to EU law and received its license only on that date; the Advocate General's opinion of 19 March 2026 favors refunds unless the authorities gave precise, unconditional assurances, and no judgment date is set. See C-530/24 Tipico sports betting reference.

Is online gambling legal across the EU?

There is no EU license and no EU-wide answer: the Court has said since Schindler (24 March 1994), Liga Portuguesa (8 September 2009) and Stoß (8 September 2010) that each Member State may restrict or ban gambling and need not recognize another state's license, so legality is a national question answered on the country pages. The court-ordered side of the question is in can you get gambling losses back, country by country.

What this page does not cover

Two topics sit outside the Court's gambling case law. Prediction markets such as Polymarket and their treatment in Europe belong to a tracker, Polymarket in Europe: ANJ block, KSA penalty and the Malta question.

The national judgments that apply these rulings sit on the country hubs, including the Austrian Supreme Court's own answer to Malta, that enforcement there is unreasonable so Austrian courts may be designated instead (OGH 3 Nc 10/24m, 3 April 2024), explained in OGH-Rechtsprechung zur Rückforderung von Online-Glücksspielverlusten.

Sources and method

Of the 27 cases on this page, 27 carry a status read from the judgment, order or the Court's own press release; the rest rest on the Commission's case-law index, law-firm reports and legal press, each flagged in the table.

Primary sources are the Publications Office CELEX pages, the curia press releases cp260053, cp260065, cp260043, cp260076, cp260002, cp220062, cp180022, cp170068, cp150069, cp160010, cp130007 and cp100075, BGH press release 155/2024, the Conseil d'État decision 436441, the Commission's infringement package of 18 June 2025 and OJ C/2024/7019.

Law-firm reports, the isa-guide service and lagen.nu mirrors are secondary and never the only basis for a status. GamblingLawsuits.org is a non-profit public record: filing a claim is free, we are not a law firm and not a claims administrator, and we link no operator.

The checks behind each status are described on our methodology page.

Errors are fixed and logged on the corrections page.