German operators move to reinstate PayPal payments
Mybet, Tipico and bwin among a host of additional operators to reintroduce PayPal payments option
Words by Ross Law
Germany-facing betting operators including mybet and Tipico have reinstated PayPal as a payments option since the State of Lower Saxony banned online deposits via the payments provider, EGR has learned.
EGR understands mybet, Tipico, bwin and bet-at-home have become the latest operators to offer PayPal as a payment method, joining Interwetten which made a similar announcement last month.
A spokesman for mybet told EGR: “We were able to prove to PayPal that you can only place sports bets with funds deposited through PayPal and that we were amongst selected companies which received an approval for an interim license (E-15 licence) several years ago to legally offer sports betting in Germany.”
Interwetten was the first operator to announce it had reinstated PayPal, with one source claiming at the time it was able to do so because the company had found a way to ensure PayPal was only used for betting.
The payments giant was originally told via a cease and desist letter in mid-2019 to stop facilitating online casino transactions in Germany, and later bowed to political pressure by switching off its service for gambling partners.
The ban was applied in each of Germany’s 16 states in October 2019 and all deposits via PayPal were affected, despite the fact payments only relate to casino and not sports betting.
LeoVegas claimed in November that the switch-off of PayPal had cost the operator “20-30%” of its revenues from the market.