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“Pathological Gamblers” and “Sovereign Consumers”: National Gambling Regulation and the Challenges of European Integration and Digitization in Germany, 2004–2018

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Laura Kaiser
Laura Kaiser*
Affiliation:
Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam, Germany
*
Email: kaiser@zzf-potsdam.de
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Abstract

This study examines the interrelationship between national sovereignty and individual consumer sovereignty in the age of a global liberal economy and digital markets by analyzing Germany's gambling regulations. As gambling policies were codified and liberalized from 2004 to 2018, gambling addiction quickly became the key issue in legal and political quarrels over regulation. The article will shed light on the differing interests at play in the controversy and discuss how discourses on addictive gambling behavior affected political disputes over gambling liberalization. It explores contemporary German gambling regulations in the context of European integration and the digitization of the gambling market, which posed crucial challenges to national sovereignty. I argue that Germany's claim for national autonomy over gambling regulations was deeply intertwined with the question of individual consumer sovereignty because it relied on the pathologization of certain types of gambling consumption and gamblers. The emergence of the “pathological gambler” can be understood as the manifestation of a new socioeconomic and political order in which risks emanating from liberalized markets are dealt with as individual consumer addiction issues.

Type
Article
Information
Central European History , Volume 55 , Special Issue 1: Sovereignty in German History , March 2022 , pp. 90 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Central European History Society of the American Historical Association

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References

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3 One example of the rising perception of gambling addiction as a public health issue would be the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), which was founded in 1972. It represents the biggest American organization that aims at rising the public awareness on gambling risks and gambling addiction: see National Council on Problem Gambling (https://www.ncpgambling.org/).

4 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-III (Washington, DC: APA Publishing, 1980).

5 Alan F. Collins, “The Pathological Gambler and the Government of Gambling,” History of the Human Sciences 9, no. 3 (1996): 69–70.

6 Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerwG), Judgement of the First Senate of 28 March 2006—1 BvR 1054/01—para. 1–162 (http://www.bverfg.de/e/rs20060328_1bvr105401en.html).

7 LottStV, §2, June 22, 2004 (https://gluecksspiel.uni-hohenheim.de/fileadmin/einrichtungen/gluecksspiel/Rechtssprechung/Lotteriestaatsvertrag.pdf).

8 LottStV, 19–22.

9 The definition of gambling here being the sale of a chance of winning in a public game, of which the outcome totally or predominantly depends on uncertain future events: GlüStV, §3, January 1, 2008 (https://gluecksspiel.uni-hohenheim.de/fileadmin/einrichtungen/gluecksspiel/Staatsvertrag/GlueStV.pdf).

10 GlüStV, §4, §10.

11 See Mark Griffiths, “Internet Gambling: Issues, Concerns and Recommendations,” CyberPsychology & Behavior 6, no. 6 (2003): 557–68; Kurosch Yazdi and Karin Yazdi, “Glücksspiele im Internet—Neues Gefahrenpotenzial?,”Psychiatria Danubina 26, no. 4 (2014): 389–393.

12 Reith, “Gambling and the Contradictions of Consumption: A Genealogy of the ‘Pathological’ Subject,” 33, 38–39, 51; Gerda Reith, “Techno Economic Systems and Excessive Consumption: A Political Economy of ‘Pathological’ Gambling,” The British Journal of Sociology 64, no. 4 (2013): 717–38; Brian Castellani, Pathological Gambling: The Making of a Medical Problem (New York: Suny Press, 2000), 145.

13 Niklas Olsen, The Sovereign Consumer: A New Intellectual History of Neoliberalism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 7–9; Reith, “Gambling and the Contradictions of Consumption: A Genealogy of the ‘Pathological’ Subject,” 39–41.

14 Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–78, ed. Michel Senellart (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–79, ed. Michel Senellart (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Wiebke Wiede, “Subjekt und Subjektivierung,” Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, October 26, 2019 (http://dx.doi.org/10.14765/zzf.dok-1707); Nikolas Rose, Governing the Soul. The Shaping of the Private Self (London and New York: Free Association Books, 1989).

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16 Colin Crouch, “Economic Patriotism and the Paradox of Neo-liberal Democracy” (paper presented at the first Economic Patriotism Workshop, Warwick University, 2008), 13–14; Ben Clift and Cornelia Woll, “Economic Patriotism: Reinventing Control over Open Markets,” Journal of European Public Policy 19, no. 3 (2012): 308.

17 Krasner, Sovereignty, 4.

18 Sytze Kingma, “Gambling and the Risk Society: The Liberalisation and Legitimation Crisis of Gambling in the Netherlands,” International Gambling Studies 4, no. 1 (2004): 48–50.

19 LottStV, 19.

20 ECJ, Judgment of the Court, 6 November 2003, para. 57, 59, 61–63, 69 (http://curia.europa.eu/juris/showPdf.jsf;jsessionid=24EFFC34198680770CC9337A60556099?text=&docid=48383&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=10907905).

21 ECJ, Judgment of the Court, 6 November 2003, para. 2, 7–8.

22 Merten Haring, Sportförderung in Deutschland. Eine vergleichende Analyse der Bundesländer (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010), 75.

23 “Oddset Quoten,” Bild Sportwetten, 2020 (https://sportwetten.bild.de/oddset-quoten/#:~:text=Oddset%20Auszahlungsquoten&text=Hinzu%20kommt%2C%20dass%20bei%20Oddset,bei%20jeder%20einzelnen%20Wette%20ab).

24 Since the global expansion of commercial gambling, the amount of collected taxes on gambling has risen considerably, surpassing the amount of tax moneys levied on alcohol by far. For the amount of tax moneys levied on alcohol, see “Alkoholsteuer,” Federal Ministry of Finance (https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Web/DE/Themen/Zoll/Verbrauchsteuern/verbrauchsteuern.html).

25 Reith, “Gambling and the Contradictions of Consumption: A Genealogy of the ‘Pathological’ Subject,” 41–45.

26 Olsen, The Sovereign Consumer; Karsten Witt, Wohlfahrt und Freiheit. Eine Kritik an der Rechtfertigung freier Märkte (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 2012), 66.

27 Roberta Sassatelli, Consumer Culture. History, Theory and Politics (London: Sage Publications 2007), 57–60; Jason L. Saving, “Consumer Sovereignty in the Modern Global Era,” Journal of Private Enterprise XXII, no. 1 (2006): 107.

28 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-III-R (Washington, DC: APA Publishing, 1987), 312.31; American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV (Washington, DC: APA Publishing, 1994); Horst Dilling, Werner Mombour and Martin H. Schmidt, ed., Internationale Klassifikation psychischer Störungen, ICD-10 (Bern: Huber 1993), 237–38.

29 DSM-IV.

30 See Reith, “Gambling and the Contradictions of Consumption: A Genealogy of the ‘Pathological’ Subject,” 41.

31 See Alex P. Blaszczynski and Neil MacConaghy, “The Medical Model of Pathological Gambling: Current Shortcomings,” Journal of Gambling Behavior 5, no. 1 (1989): 43.

32 Kingma, “Gambling and the Risk Society,” 55, 64–65.

33 American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5 (Washington, DC: APA Publishing, 2013); John E. Grant et al., “Impulse Control Disorders and ‘Behavioral Addictions’ in the ICD-11,” World Psychiatry 13, no. 2 (2014): 125–26.

34 DSM-5, 58–56.

35 “Associated features” of “pathological gambling” named in DSM-IV include, for example, individuals with “distortions in thinking (e.g., denial, superstitions, overconfidence, or a sense of power and control)” or individuals, who “are overly concerned with the approval of others” or are “energetic, restless and easily bored.”

36 DSM-5, 20. See, for example, D. E. Comings et al., “The Addictive Effect of Neurotransmitter Genes in Pathological Gambling,” Clinical Genetics 60, no. 2 (2001): 107–16; J. F. Navarro and Carmen Pedraza, “Pathological Gambling: Biological Aspects,” Psicologia Conductual 6, no. 1 (1998): 157–64.

37 DSM-III-R, x–xi.

38 See, for example, Eric R. Maisel, “The New Definition of a Mental Disorder: Is it an Improvement or Another Brazen Attempt to Name a Non-existing Thing?,” Psychology Today, July 23, 2013; Thomas A. Widiger and Lee Anne Clark, “Toward DSM-V and the Classification of Psychopathology,” Psychological Bulletin 126, no. 6, (2000): 946–63; Dusan Kecmanovic, “The DSM-5 Definition of Mental Disorder,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 47, no. 4 (2013): 393–34; Grant et al., “Impulse Control Disorders and ‘Behavioral Addictions’ in the ICD-11,” 125–26. On the “descriptive” approach of the DSM-III, see George E. Vaillant, “The Disadvantages of DSM-III Outweigh Its Advantages,” Journal of American Psychiatry 141, no. 4 (1984): 542.

39 BVerfG, para. 49–55.

40 BVerfG, para. 31, 39.

41 BVerfG, para. 28.

42 BVerfG, para. 41.

43 BVerfG, para. 39.

44 BVerfG, para. 49–55.

45 BVerfG, para. 53–54.

46 BVerfG, para. 64.

47 BVerfG, para. 49, 64.

48 BVerfG, para. 71.

49 BVerfG, para. 58; Gerhard Meyer and Tobias Hayer, Das Gefährdungspotenzial von Lotterien und Sportwetten. Eine Untersuchung von Spielern aus Versorgungseinrichtungen (Düsseldorf: Ministerium für Arbeit, Gesundheit und Soziales des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2005).

50 BVerfG, para. 100; Tobias Hayer and Gerhard Meyer, “Die Prävention problematischen Spielverhaltens,” Journal for Public Health (2004): 293–303.

51 BVerfG, para. 70.

52 Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen, “Ausschussprotokoll. Ausschuss für Arbeit, Gesundheit und Soziales,” APr 16/30, September 6, 2012, 50 (https://www.landtag.nrw.de/portal/WWW/dokumentenarchiv/Dokument/MMA16-30.pdf).

53 Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen, “Ausschussprotokoll. Ausschuss für Arbeit, Gesundheit und Soziales,” APr 16/30, September 6, 2012, 24–25.

54 Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen, “Ausschussprotokoll. Ausschuss für Arbeit, Gesundheit und Soziales,” APr 16/30, September 6, 2012, 37.

55 Bremische Bürgerschaft, “Antrag der Fraktion der FDP. Glücksspielstaatsvertrag im Sinne des Jugend- und Spielerschutzes demokratisieren,” Drucksache 19/121, October 26, 2015 (https://www.bremische-buergerschaft.de/dokumente/wp19/land/drucksache/D19L0121.pdf); Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen, “Antrag der Fraktion der FDP. Glücksspiel und Sportwetten EU- und Verfassungsrechtskonform gestalten,” Drucksache 16/10294, November 24, 2015 (https://fdp.fraktion.nrw/sites/default/files/uploads/2016/04/28/mmd16-10294.pdf).

56 Hessischer Landtag, “Dringlicher Antrag der Fraktionen CDU und Bündnis 90/Die Grünen betreffend Scheitern des Zweiten Glücksspieländerungsstaatsvertrag,” Drucksache 19/5769, December 12, 2017 (https://www.gluecksspielwesen.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2017-12-12_Hessen_2GlueSt_Drs19-5769.pdf).

57 See Kingma, “Gambling and the Risk Society,” 49–50.

58 “Endbericht des Landes Hessen zur Evaluierung des Glücksspielstaatsvertrags,” April 10, 2017 (https://innen.hessen.de/sites/default/files/media/evaluierungsbericht_des_landes_hessen_zum_gluecksspielstaatsvertrag.pdf), 41–42.

59 See also German Bundestag, Monopolkommission, Auszug aus Hauptgutachten XIX (2010/2011), Drucksache 17/10365, July 20, 2012, 48, https://www.monopolkommission.de/images/PDF/HG/HG19/1_Einleitung_HG_19.pdf.

60 ECJ, Judgment of the Court, 8 September 2010, para. 97, 100, 106 (http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=C5A2AC09A8B9DAC1E45FC94E582D1FDC?text=&docid=80772&pageIndex=0&doclang=de&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=5933319).

61 ECJ, Judgment of the Court, 8 September 2010, para. 105, 107.

62 BVerfG, para. 109.

63 See Martin Stadelmaier, “Das Glück, seine Regulierung und die Länder,” in Multidisziplinäre Betrachtung des vielschichtigen Phänomens Glücksspiel. Festschrift zu Ehren des 65. Geburtstags von Prof. Dr. Tilman Becker, ed. Andrea Wöhr and Marius Wuketich (Wiesbaden: 2019), 336.

64 GlüÄndStV, July 1, 2012 (https://www.berlin-suchtpraevention.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Gluecksspielaenderungsstaatsvertrag.pdf).

65 “Gesetz zur Neuordnung des Glücksspiels (Glücksspielgesetz),” October 10, 2011 (https://www.gesetze-rechtsprechung.sh.juris.de/jportal/?quelle=jlink&query=GlSpielG+SH&psml=bsshoprod.psml&max=true&aiz=true).

66 GlüÄndStV, §4.

67 GlüÄndStV, §10a. “Land-based” gambling refers to gambling in physical spaces, as opposed to online/virtual gambling.

68 Daniel Reiche, “The Prohibition of Online Sports Betting: A Comparative Analysis of Germany and the United States,” in European Sports Management Quarterly 13, no. 3 (2012): 305.

69 BVerwG, Judgment 15 June 2016—8 C 5.15 (https://www.bverwg.de/150616U8C5.15.0); VGH Hessen, Judgment October 16 2015—8 B 1028/15 (https://gluecksspiel.uni-hohenheim.de/fileadmin/einrichtungen/gluecksspiel/Recht/8B1028-15.pdf), 5.

70 “Entwurf zum Zweiten Staatsvertrag zur Änderung des Glücksspielstaatsvertrages,” October 28, 2016, https://gluecksspiel.uni-hohenheim.de/fileadmin/einrichtungen/gluecksspiel/Start/Entwurf_2_Staatsvertrag.pdf.

71 Hessischer Landtag, “Dringlicher Antrag der Fraktionen CDU und Bündnis 90/Die Grünen betreffend Scheitern des Zweiten Glücksspieländerungsstaatsvertrag,” Drucksache 19/5769, December 12, 2017 (https://www.gluecksspielwesen.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2017-12-12_Hessen_2GlueSt_Drs19-5769.pdf), 1; Harald Büring, “Von Glücksspielrittern und Outlaws. Online-Glücksspiel aus rechtlicher Sicht,” c't—Magazin für computertechnik 13 (2018): 164; “Entwurf zum Zweiten Staatsvertrag zur Änderung des Glücksspielstaatsvertrages,” 2.

72 “Endbericht des Landes Hessen zur Evaluierung des Glücksspielstaatsvertrags,” 11, 40; See also Christian Adam, “Glücksspiel. Sportwetten am Wendepunkt,” in Moralpolitik in Deutschland. Staatliche Regulierung gesellschaftlicher Wertekonflikte im historischen und internationalen Vergleich, ed. Christoph Knill, Stephan Heichel, Carline Preidel and Kerstin Nebel (Wiesbaden: 2015), 195.

73 Reiche, “The Prohibition of Online Sports Betting,” 302.

74 “Endbericht des Landes Hessen zur Evaluierung des Glücksspielstaatsvertrags,” 40.

75 See Des Laffey, Vincent Della Sala, and Kathryn Laffey, “Patriot Games: The Regulation of Online Gambling in the European Union,” Journal of European Public Policy 23, no. 10 (2016): 1429.

76 “Interdependence sovereignty” refers to the scope of activities over which states can effectively exercise control.

77 GlüStV, §9; GlüÄStV, §9.

78 Philipp Eckstein, Jan Lukas Strzyk, and Benedikt Strunz, “VISA zieht sich offenbar zurück,” tagesschau.de, May 26, 2020 (https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr/gluecksspiel-visa-101.html).

79 Tilman Becker, “Warum scheitert die Regulierung des Glücksspielmarktes?,” European Journal of Gambling Law 6, no. 15 (2015): 414.

80 Becker, “Warum scheitert die Regulierung des Glücksspielmarktes?,” 415–16. On why legal concerns around data protection probably don't constitute the main reason for governmental inaction, see also Jan-Philipp Rock: “Cutting the Cash Flow: Mit Bankrecht gegen illegal Glücksspielanbieter,” European Journal of Gambling Law 3–4, no. 20 (2018): 24.

81 “Niedersachsen will Lockerung des Glücksspielstaatsvertrags,” Hannoversche Allgemeine, August 4, 2010 (https://www.haz.de/Nachrichten/Politik/Niedersachsen/Niedersachsen-will-Lockerung-des-Gluecksspiel-Staatsvertrags).

82 Becker, Warum scheitert die Regulierung des Glücksspielmarktes?,” 416–17.

83 Milward, Alan S., The European Rescue of the Nation State (London: Routledge 1992)Google Scholar.

84 See Krasner, Sovereignty, 9.

85 See Laffey, Sala, and Laffey, “Patriot Games,” 1427.

86 Laffey, Sala, and Laffey, “Patriot Games,” 314.

87 Streeck, Wolfgang, Gekaufte Zeit. Die vertagte Krise des demokratischen Kapitalismus (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2013), 201–05Google Scholar.

88 Clift and Woll, “Economic Patriotism: Reinventing Control over Open Markets,” 308–11.

89 “Plaidoyer de Dominique de Villepin en faveur d'un ‘patriotisme économique,’” in Le Monde, July 27, 2005 (https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2005/07/27/plaidoyer-de-dominique-de-villepin-en-faveur-d-un-patriotisme-economique_675859_3224.html); Streeck, Gekaufte Zeit, 201.

90 LottStV, §1; GlüStV, §1.