Austria's gambling market is undergoing a major surgery that is fifteen years overdue. After weeks of tough negotiations, a new bill aimed at ending the Win2Day online gambling monopoly was officially submitted to parliament last week. If all goes well, October 1, 2027 will mark the end of one of the last online casino monopolies in Europe. However, PASA's official website notes that a nine-month "gap period" designed in the draft is causing fierce controversy—during the vacuum period when the legal market has not yet opened and gray operators are being forced out, the biggest beneficiaries are likely not player protection, but the black market.
The timetable is hanging by a thread: Is 12 months enough to issue licenses?
According to the roadmap set by the draft, gray market operators must cease gambling services by January 2027, or they will be banned from entering the new market for 18 months; those still operating by 2030 will have their ban extended to two years. Between January and October 2027, unlicensed operations will enter at least a nine-month hiatus, during which time prospective licensees need to settle historical player claims and unpaid taxes. The Austrian Gambling and Betting Association reveals that claims alone amount to several million euros.
But political analyst Felix Geyer is not buying this timetable. He did the math for iGB: If the law is passed by parliament as expected in July, followed by a three-month EU notification period, the earliest it could take effect is October. The window left for the Ministry of Finance to issue licenses is only about 12 months, during which time the separate tender for lottery licenses and the establishment of a new regulatory body must also be completed. "Considering how slow the Austrian political process can be, I'm skeptical that they can issue licenses within 12 months," Geyer said.
What's more unsettling is that the previous version of the draft explicitly stated a hard deadline of "issuing licenses before October 2027," but this date was quietly removed in the final version submitted to parliament. Additionally, rumors of Malta challenging the draft at the EU level are fermenting, and any delay in the notification period would further extend the entire transition period. Geyer's concern is straightforward: "The initial intent of this process was to protect players and eliminate the black market. But if filled with uncertainties, players and operators are likely to flow back to the black market together."
Honest people lose out: No rewards for those who exit first
The draft also contains a subtle design—an 18-month "cooling-off period" (extended to 24 months from 2030) originally aimed at those operators who cling to the gray market until the last moment. This clause is reportedly supported by the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, the conservative People's Party, and the current monopoly holder, Casinos Austria, with gambling giant Admiral also publicly taking the stage.
But the actual effect is quite ironic. Operators like Tipico and Merkur, who voluntarily shut down their online operations and chose to respect the legislation before the new law was formed, did not receive any preferential treatment from the cooling-off period clause. On the contrary, gray players who operated until the ban took effect only need to exit on time to apply for a license normally. Geyer commented with regret: "Those who followed the rules got nothing after the dust settled. Next time a similar situation arises, everyone will stick in the gray area until the last minute."
Simon Priglinger-Simader, chairman of the Austrian Gambling and Betting Association, outright expressed another layer of concern: The nine-month gap period will not make players obediently flow to Win2Day or physical casinos, but will push them into the arms of the black market. After all, these gray brands are already well-known in Austria, and players can find them by changing the domain name. "Hoping that physical operators can catch all customers is purely wishful thinking." The Social Democratic Party originally advocated accelerating market opening to implement player protection as soon as possible, but the final compromise was this nine-month interim solution.
Entry tickets are too expensive: 45% tax rate, claims, and retrospective taxes triple pressure
Even after surviving the gap period, the cost of entering the legal market is enough to make many operators rethink their strategies. The draft sets the online gambling tax rate at 45%, plus the mandatory requirements to settle historical claims and pay retrospective taxes, Artur Stadler, founding partner of Vienna's Stadler Partner law firm, bluntly states: "This is essentially a paywall to enter the licensed market." What's worse, the taxes paid on compensated bonuses are most likely not to be refunded.
Stadler also pointed out an inherent logical conflict: "Two of the three main objectives are contradictory. If the Ministry of Finance wants to maximize the collection of retrospective taxes, then the tax base generated during the mandatory gap period is zero. You can't optimize both directions at the same time. Operators have every reason to question: What do you really want, tax revenue or exclusivity?"
Germany's mirror: Too strict regulations push players to the black market
The legal market has not yet opened, but regulatory shackles are already in place. According to the draft, licensed operators must comply with a series of stringent player protection measures: a mandatory 15-minute cooling-off period after every 90 minutes of gaming, a maximum single bet of €5, a limit on reel speed, and a maximum payout of €10000 per game. In terms of deposits, players under 26 are limited to €250 per week, while older players are limited to €1680 per week (those over 23 can apply for higher limits based on income and credit score).
Geyer provides a straightforward judgment: "A €5 maximum bet, a minimum two-second reel time, a €10000 cap on payouts—finding more attractive products on the black market is not difficult at all."
The precedent set by neighboring Germany makes one sweat. According to Yield Sec platform data, 54% of Germany's total gambling revenue in 2024 flowed to the black market, approximately €4 billion. The industry organization DOCV told iGB in March this year that Germany's channelization rate in 2025 is only about 50%, although the regulatory authority claims it is close to 80%. Operators point the finger at high tax rates and layers of regulatory restrictions, believing that these terms tie the hands of the legal industry. Austria's rules are stricter than Germany's from day one, and the prospects for channelization are not optimistic.
With the end of Austria's iGaming monopoly now a foregone conclusion, the tender may start as early as this year. In the coming months, PASA's official website will continue to monitor whether operators are willing to bet on this expensive entry ticket—after all, a 45% tax, millions in historical claims, and a gap period full of uncertainties, whether this account is worth it, is something every company must repeatedly calculate.
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This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders," a gambling industry news channel: https://t.me/pasa_news
Original deep channel for gambling: https://t.me/gamblingdeep
Free data report: @pasa_research
PASA Matrix: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: https://www.pasa.news
