The casino Spielbank Wiesbaden, which operates the only online roulette with a state license in Germany, has presented a 100-day balance sheet of its Internet activities. According to the press release, some 1800 people have registered for the virtual game with the little white ball since July 16, 2004.

On the average, 200 of them take part each day in a "Real Game". Here, the numbers are determined on a real roulette wheel, with web cams broadcasting the event via Internet to the PCs of players.

Participants must either be residents of the State of Hesse, currently visiting the State, or residents of another state that does not prohibit its citizens from taking part in foreign gambling.

The management at Spielbank Wiesbaden announced that the gross profit (= the money that players bet minus payouts) has developed such that the forecast of two million euros per year will probably be slightly surpassed.

Spread across the 1800 registered gamblers, the statistical average that each gambler loses at the Internet casino amounts to the easy-to-remember sum of 1111 euros. A large part of the proceeds go to the State of Hesse. The largest amount won to date was just above 60,000 euros.

At the end of 2002, the State Parliament in Wiesbaden changed Hesse's Casino Act to allow the Spielbank to offer gambling on the Internet.

A similar initiative failed in Hamburg. In judicial review proceedings, Hamburg's Constitutional Court ruled that a license for online roulette based on the Gambling Ordinance is not "compatible with authorization according to the current Casino Act". The Court held that gamblers must be physically present in the rooms of the casino Spielbank Hamburg.

Source: Heise Online