Telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom (DT) has shut its German-facing online betting site Tipp3.de just one year after its launch.
With great fanfare, DT announced the launch of Tipp3.de in April 2015, two months after acquiring a majority stake in sports betting operator Deutsche Sportswetten, which was one of the original 20 recipients of German sports betting licenses that have yet to be officially issued due to legal challenges.
But Tipp3.de abruptly went dark on June 9, posting a message to its home page thanking customers for their patronage while alerting them that it was no longer accepting deposits or new bets. The site says it will honor pending wagers and credit winners’ accounts accordingly, and unused free credits and bonuses will be credited to customer accounts.
On Wednesday, eGaming Review reported that DT had opted to pull the plug for “commercial reasons.” An unidentified German market observer told the site that Tipp3.de’s technology was “a horrible and outdated product” that couldn’t compete with other German-facing operators and that the project was “an expensive mistake” for DT.
Austrian-licensed gaming operator Österreichische Sportwetten, DT’s minority partner in the Deutsche Sportswetten JV, will continue to operate the Tipp3.at site in Austria.
DT’s decision to launch the Tipp3.de site was slammed by Deutsche Lotto and Totoblock, the association of Germany’s lottery and pool betting operators, which claimed the site was operating illegally because the license issued to Deutsche Sportswetten never took effect due to Germany’s botched efforts to liberalize its betting market.
