The Administrative Court of Münster (VG Münster) ruled by decision of June 14, 2010, in preliminary legal protection proceedings, that organizing an online quiz game, where a participation fee of 39.99 Euros allowed winning, among other prizes, a single-family house, constitutes a lottery that violates the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty.
Since October 19, 2009, the applicant has maintained a website offering a four-level knowledge quiz for a participation fee of 39.99 Euros. As the first prize, she offers a single-family house in Münster for the winner who correctly answers the quiz questions. The second and third prizes are motor vehicles, and the applicant also offers LCD televisions up to the 10th prize and branded notebooks up to the 20th prize. Should multiple participants correctly answer her quiz questions 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 March 17, 2010, and instructed the applicant to cease the lottery within two weeks. The district government justified its decision by stating that the house lottery via the internet constitutes a violation of the provisions of the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty, which stipulates that lotteries in comparable telemedia are only permissible if a fee of up to 0.50 Euros is charged for participation.
The court now confirmed this view and rejected the applicant's request to provisionally suspend the Düsseldorf district government's order. Among other reasons, the court stated: The applicant's internet offering meets the criteria for a lottery within the meaning of the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty, because the applicant offers all interested users worldwide the opportunity to participate in various quiz questions of differing difficulty levels after paying a participation fee of 39.99 Euros, and upon correctly answering the questions, to be part of the group of participants from whom she will raffle off the advertised house as the main prize in an offline final round. This lottery violates a regulation of the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty, which stipulates that for participation in lotteries in comparable telemedia, only a fee of up to 0.50 Euros may be charged. This is because the applicant demands a participation fee of 39.99 Euros, which is significantly more than provided for in the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty.
Decision of the Administrative Court of Münster, Ref. No.: 1 L 155/10 – not yet legally binding (June 17, 2010)
Source: Press release of the VG Münster
Goldberg Rechtsanwälte
Attorney Michael Ullrich, LL.M. (Information Law)
Specialist Lawyer for Information Technology Law (IT Law)
Email: info@goldberg.de
