Crypto casino legal? What applies in Germany and how to check it

The Interstate Treaty on Gambling 2021 turns the usual logic round. It is not the ban that has to be justified but the exception. § 4(4) names the offerings for which a permit may be issued for the internet at all: lotteries, sports and horse betting, online casino games, virtual slot games and online poker. For everything else the wording is: organising and brokering public games of chance on the internet are prohibited.

A casino on the web therefore needs a permit in every case before it may serve German players. Whoever holds one is on a public list. Whoever is missing from it does not hold one, and neither a friendly interface nor a large welcome bonus changes that. The cryptocurrency plays no part in this test at first; it enters only as the second question.

Responsibility does not lie with the same body for every kind of game. Virtual slot games and online poker are permitted by the Gemeinsame Glücksspielbehörde der Länder, GGL for short. Online casino games in the narrower sense lie with the states: under § 22c(1) they may run these games themselves or award concessions, at most as many as the state had casino concessions on 17 January 2020. An operator with every type of game under one roof therefore needs several permissions, and a crypto casino as a rule holds none.

For virtual slot games the law says so expressly: "Stakes and winnings may be made in euros and cents only." That is § 22a(5). The provision also forbids converting money into other currencies, points or units before, during or after play. An account kept in BTC, ETH or USDT is therefore not, for slots, the model the treaty provides for.

For the other types of game we have read no rule as clear, and so we assert nothing. What can be said: we know of no whitelisted operator that advertises crypto deposits. We have not checked every single entry for its payment offer, which is why this is a state of knowledge and not a finding.

For anyone searching for a "legal crypto casino in Germany" this leaves an either-or. Whoever wants an account in coins ends up with operators that name no German permit. Whoever wants a German permit gets a euro account with a deposit limit, an exclusion register and a stake cap. We know of no house that offers both. The table on this page belongs to the first group, and says so: none of the listed operators holds a German permit.

No. A foreign licence governs the relationship between the operator and the authority of the issuing country. Whether that operator may offer games in Germany is decided by the German treaty alone, and it recognises only its own permit as proof. That holds for licences from EU states such as Malta as much as for offshore licences.

What a register entry does achieve is still useful: it shows that the company exists, who owns it and for which domain the licence was issued. In Curaçao the supervisory authority CGA keeps a certificate register at cert.cga.cw; according to the authority the country's new gambling law has applied since 24 December 2024. Anjouan publishes a register at anjouangaming.com. How to look a number up there, and why the standing of the Anjouan body is disputed in its own country, is explained on the page about reputable crypto casinos.

The order of the questions matters. First the permit for Germany, then the quality of the foreign licence. Whoever starts with the second compares operators that already stand level on the first point.

The criminal code has a provision of its own. § 285 is headed "participation in unlicensed gambling". Whoever takes part in a public game of chance under § 284 is punished with imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of up to one hundred and eighty daily rates. That is the statutory range. How often proceedings are actually brought against players we have not surveyed, and the page makes no forecast.

Second, the payment route. Under § 9(1) sentence 3 no. 4 of the treaty the authority may forbid payment service providers from taking part in payments for unlicensed gambling. The Higher Administrative Court of Saxony-Anhalt confirmed such an order in summary proceedings on 26 October 2023 (3 M 72/23); the addressee was the provider, not the player. A deposit in coins from one's own wallet touches no such provider, and a confirmed transaction cannot be recalled.

Third, the missing protections. The cross-operator deposit limit, the OASIS exclusion register and the GGL's supervision reach only operators with a German permit. At a house without one there is no authority to turn to when a withdrawal does not arrive, and whether a claim to winnings exists is legally difficult. Anyone who wants a limit has to set it there, relying on the operator's promise.

Two questions, two answers. Gambling winnings of private individuals are, on the prevailing view, not income; Stiftung Warentest calls them tax-free, and professional gamblers are the exception. Whether someone crosses the line into professional gambling is for the tax office to judge.

It is different for the coins themselves. § 23(1) no. 2 EStG covers disposals where no more than a year lies between acquisition and sale. Under subsection 3 sentence 5 such gains stay tax-free if the total gain in the calendar year was less than 1,000 euros. Whether depositing into a casino counts as an exchange we have not examined; for larger sums the question belongs with a tax adviser.