Just recently, an article published by us was about the fact that more and more online casinos are successfully defending themselves against player lawsuits. In the current case from Austria, however, the plaintiff player left the ring as the winner. Online gambling operator PokerStars was ordered to refund the player’s entire losses of around €1.6 million. However, this case cannot be transferred to Germany, as different laws apply here.
Court sentences provider to repayment
The Supreme Court (OGH) has agreed with the player and made it clear in its judgment that the provider is obliged to reimburse all losses suffered. After all, the provider does not have an Austrian gaming license and is therefore offering its services illegally.
The plaintiff player is said to be a gambling addict. Over a longer period of time, he lost a total of around 1.6 million euros at PokerStars. He should now be reimbursed for these losses. In a slightly older article from March 2021, we asked ourselves whether it was a good idea to claim back casino losses afterwards.
Does the player actually get their money back?
It is still unclear at this point in time whether the plaintiff player will actually recover the losses he has suffered in the millions. PokerStars has so far refused to pay out losses. The lawyer of the plaintiff, who is addicted to gambling, Oliver Peschel, also assumes that it will not be easy to actually get the amount of 1.6 million euros back:
“Getting the money is a tough story in Viennese.”
In view of the high amount of the claim, lawyer Peschel now hopes that the Maltese authorities will cooperate with Austria in this case. After all, it cannot be the case that a company in an EU country so persistently opposes a court judgment from a member state, Peschel continued. There are currently a number of other lawsuits pending from players who are claiming back the casino losses they suffered from the providers in Austria.
Just two weeks ago we reported on a case from Germany in which a player did not get his casino losses back despite a legally binding conviction.
Conclusion
The highest Austrian court has agreed with the complaining player and ordered the provider to repay 1.6 million euros. However, it is likely to be a difficult and, above all, time-consuming task for the player to actually collect the money. The provider has its registered office in Malta and so far does not seem to really want to cooperate. So it remains exciting to see whether it will be possible to recover the casino losses of a single player of at least 1.6 million euros in this case.
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