The Münster Administrative Court (VG Münster) ruled in interim legal protection proceedings on 14 June 2010 that the organisation of a quiz game on the internet, in which, among other things, a single-family house was to be won in return for an entry fee of 39.99 euros, violated the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty as a lottery.
Since 19 October 2009, the applicant has maintained a website on which it offers a knowledge quiz over four levels against payment of an entry fee of 39.99 Euros. The first prize for the winner of the correctly answered quiz questions is a detached house in Münster. The second and third prizes are motor vehicles, and the applicant is also offering LCD televisions up to the 10th prize and brand-name notebooks up to the 20th prize. In the event that several participants answer the quiz questions correctly and pass the fourth quiz level, the applicant intends to identify 30 participants and invite them to an "offline" final round in Münster. The Düsseldorf district government prohibited this quiz by order of 17 March 2010 and ordered the applicant to discontinue the competition within two weeks. In justification, the district government stated that the house prize game via the internet was a violation of the provisions of the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty, according to which prize games in comparable telemedia were only permissible if a fee of up to 0.50 euros was charged for participation.
The court now confirmed this view and rejected the applicant's application to provisionally set aside the order of the Düsseldorf district government. Among other things, the court explained its reasoning: The applicant's internet offer fulfilled the requirements of the concept of a lottery within the meaning of the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty, because the applicant offered all interested users worldwide to participate in various quiz questions of different degrees of difficulty after paying a participation fee of 39.99 euros and, if the questions were answered correctly, to belong to the group of participants among whom it raffled the house offered as the main prize in an offline final round. This lottery violated a provision of the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty, according to which only a fee of up to 0.50 euros may be charged for participation in lotteries in comparable telemedia. The applicant demanded a participation fee of 39.99 euros and thus considerably more than provided for in the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty.
Decision of the VG Münster, ref.: 1 L 155/10 - not legally binding (17.6.2010)
Source: Press release of the VG Münster
Goldberg Attorneys at Law
Attorney at Law Michael Ullrich, LL.M. (Information Law)
Specialist lawyer for information technology law (IT law)
E-mail: info@goldberg.de
