THE EU MUST TEAR DOWN MALTA’S GAMBLING WALL

By Economist

 Here is the trick. A betting site sets up in Malta. It puts a licence on the homepage. It then takes money from players in Germany and Austria. Those countries say: you need ourlicence too. Courts there tell the company to give the losses back. Malta then says: sorry, we will not enforce that judgment. Our law, Article 56A, treats the foreign court as the problem. The player wins on paper. The cash stays on the island.

That is not clever regulation. It is a shield for an industry that is about a tenth of Malta’s economy. Other countries get the addiction. Malta gets the tax crumbs and the jobs.

The EU already has a tool for this. It is called an infringement case. Think of it as Brussels sending a formal warning, then a final warning, then taking a country to the EU’s top court. If the country still refuses, the court can hit it with huge fines that run every day until the law is ripped out.

Brussels opened that case against Malta in June 2025. File number INFR(2025)2100, if you care. The charge is simple. EU rules say court judgments should travel across the Union. Malta built a wall for casino companies. Malta sent its defence in September 2025. Then the Commission did the most Brussels thing possible. It kept pausing, “looking at the papers”.

That pause is the scandal. Advocate General Emiliou has already said the shield is “manifestly incompatible” with mutual recognition. The courts have not been shy. In April 2026 the EU court said Germany can ban Malta-licensed games and order the money back. A Malta stamp is not a free pass into another country. Malta’s shield law is plainly illegal. Researcher Lilith Wittmann, as mentioned in this blog, pulled files from the Malta Gaming Authority’s own systems. Those files are now with journalists and German investigators. Names. Revenues. The map of who took what.

So the excuse of “it’s complicated” is worn out.

Here is what “merciless” should mean, in ordinary language. Send the final warning this month. Tell Malta to scrap the shield law, not hold another meeting. Give them weeks. If they keep it, sue. If they lose and stall, fine them every day. The EU did something like this over Malta selling passports. Betting protectionism is not holier.

If Brussels goes soft, Germany or Austria should sue Malta themselves. Countries can do that when the Commission hides.

Forget dreams of a new EU betting tax. Malta would veto it. The judgment rule already exists. Use it. Then German courts can actually collect. Then a Malta licence stops being a fortress.