Germany Self-Exclusion Numbers Are on the Rise, Nearly 350K Registered

Germany’s self-exclusion program has reached a new milestone, with registrations poised to hit 350,000. Known as OASIS, the program works to tackle gambling-related harm by allowing players to exclude themselves from regulated gambling websites.

Germany’s Self-Exclusion List is Growing at a Rapid Clip

The number of registrants has been achieved in a short while since the program launched in 2021, with the program close to wrapping its fourth year of operations. OASIS is a prerequisite for all gambling operators in Germany, and they are obligated to connect to the system, ensuring that a self-excluded individual is not allowed to gamble.

All operators have a button that allows gamblers to exclude for a period of 24 hours, with the register now featuring 336,980 exclusions at the time of writing. The majority of people have chosen to exclude themselves for a full year, with the next largest option including bans from one to two years.

The third largest group includes those who have been excluded for five to ten years, about 7,459 people, and 22,381 people have been excluded for a period longer than ten years.

Part of the program’s success could come from the fact that it is very intuitively integrated into operators’ websites, but another reason for success could also be tied to the option to exclude for only 24 hours.

Self-Exclusion Creates New Issues for the Regulated Market

There are no special hoops that players need to jump through, which further incentivizes players to opt into the short-term option that could prevent immediate excessive spending. The numbers are fairly normal, given that the United Kingdom has about 560,000 self-excluded people on GamStop, the country’s version of a self-exclusion system, since it launched in 2018.

Self-exclusion, though, has allowed offshore operators to start targeting such individuals. For example, in the United Kingdom, domains are springing up on Google searches that advertise “gambling websites not on GamStop.”

This is an issue given that, at least in the European Union, 71% of the total gambling market is controlled by offshore websites, according to a recent study by Yield Sec.