## Facts

- A German Land maintained a public monopoly reserving the organization of sports-betting to public-law entities and excluding private operators.
- Winner Wetten GmbH, licensed to operate sports betting in another EU Member State, sought authorization to offer sports betting in Bergheim, Germany.
- The Mayor of Bergheim refused authorization based on the applicable Land monopoly legislation.
- Winner Wetten challenged the refusal in the Administrative Court in Cologne, arguing the monopoly violated the EU freedoms of establishment and to provide services.
- The referring court considered the monopoly not justified because it did not limit betting in a consistent and systematic manner, including because state operators promoted participation.
- Germany’s constitutional court had declared the monopoly unconstitutional under domestic law but ordered it to remain temporarily in force to allow legislative reform.
- The referring court asked whether, notwithstanding EU-law incompatibility, it could keep applying the monopoly during that domestic transitional period.

## Issues

1. Whether a public monopoly on sports betting that does not pursue consumer-protection and anti-addiction aims in a consistent and systematic manner violates EU free-movement rules on establishment and services.
2. Whether EU-law primacy permits continued application of EU-incompatible national legislation during a transitional period ordered by a national constitutional court.
3. Whether a national court may itself suspend the disapplication of EU-incompatible national law on legal-certainty grounds.

## Decision

- The Court held that a monopoly regime that does not limit betting activities in a consistent and systematic manner constitutes an unjustified restriction on the freedoms of establishment and to provide services.
- The Court held that, due to the primacy and direct effect of EU law, such incompatible national rules may not continue to apply during a domestically ordered transitional period.
- The Court held that national courts must disapply conflicting national provisions, including those supported by constitutional-law arrangements, without awaiting legislative change.
- The Court indicated that any exceptional temporary limitation of the effects of an EU-law finding is for the CJEU alone and was not justified on the facts presented.

## Legal Principles

- Member States may restrict gambling to protect consumers and combat fraud and addiction, but restrictions must be proportionate and applied in a consistent and systematic manner.
- National legislation that stimulates or expands gambling while claiming public-interest justifications cannot be justified as a restriction on establishment or services.
- EU law has primacy over all national law, including constitutional rules and binding constitutional-court directions, and national courts must ensure EU law’s full effectiveness.
- National courts must disapply EU-incompatible national rules immediately; they may not maintain those rules in force because domestic law provides a transitional period.
- Any exceptional, time-limited maintenance of effects on legal-certainty grounds is a matter for the CJEU, not national courts.

## Conclusion

The CJEU ruled that an incoherent sports-betting monopoly violates EU free-movement rules and that ordinary national courts must disapply such EU-incompatible legislation immediately, even when a national constitutional court has ordered a temporary transitional continuation under domestic law.


Winner Wetten GmbH v. Bürgermeisterin der Stadt Bergheim (Case C-409/06), 2010 E.C.R. I-8015 (C.J.E.U. 2010)