As the IMA trade show opened its doors in Düsseldorf on Tuesday for its four-day run, industry leader Paul Gauselmann told the assembled trade - and an extra-large gathering of media - that the industry would present a united front to the country’s 16 states, or Länder, which are proposing hard-hitting reforms to how the industry operates.

Germany

Gauselmann announced the formation of the Deutsche Automaten Wirtschaft, an umbrella organisation to the industry’s several trade associations which would ‘speak with one voice’ for the entire business.

The move will head off the diverging opinions within the German trade on how to respond to the Länder and we understand that it came following long negotiations between the associations.

The countdown is now well under way towards the imposition of fresh rules on Germany’s 10,000 arcades by the states, using an inter-state treaty, which will come into effect beginning 2017 and Gauselmann said would wipe out 70 per cent of the business if left unopposed.

IMA was used as the forum to announce the moves and the hall was full of TV cameras and journalists from national and provincial newspapers as well as most of the industry leaders from Germany. The well-managed presentation also involved a question-and-answer session using a sympathetic politician in Wolfgang Kubicki from Schleswig-Holstein, an expert in constitutional law, Professor Bernd Hartmann, and a specialist in gambling addiction, Pieter Remmers. All of them expressed concern at the unreasonable attitudes illustrated in the inter-state treaty.

They feared a contraction in the size of the industry leading to fewer choices for players; in turn leading to the growth of illegal gambling and resource to the uncontrolled internet gambling sector.

“When they (the states) work against the industry under the guise of protecting players they are actually depriving the public funds of billions of euros in tax income,” declared Kubicki.

The gambling addiction expert, Pieter Remmers, noted: “The private sector has more and more strict rules applied to it while the state-owned alternatives flourish.” He was referring to the casinos, in which the Länder have large stakes, and their income from the lotteries.

In Germany the federal government takes €1.7bn in tax from the commercial sector, which employs 70,000 people.