Austria's Pending Gambling Reforms Will Shake Up Player Protection and Open Online Market

15 October 2026

Austria's government has proposed sweeping reforms to its gambling laws that would bring online gambling into the regulated sphere, while tightening the reins on player protections.

Under the recently published draft amendment to the Austrian Gambling Act, the country would move to a strictly regulated concession system for online gambling, allowing licensed competition for the first time. This marks a significant shift from the current virtual monopoly of state-owned operators.

To combat illegal online gambling, the draft introduces aggressive new tools: mandatory payment blocking, network website blocking, and public information to raise awareness about the risks of gambling with insufficiently regulated providers. Existing illegal operators will have until January 1, 2027 to cease offering services to qualify for a license.

Player protection takes center stage in the reforms. A central, cross-operator, cross-game self-exclusion register would be established, covering all land-based casino, slot machine, and online gambling. Players could opt out for a 12-month period, binding to all gambling operators in the country.

Furthermore, the draft would impose mandatory, universally applied deposit limits for online gambling and slot machines. Players aged 18 to 26 would face lower limits, reflecting particular concerns about youth gambling. Limits would be determined on a per-person, rather than per-operator basis, to prevent players from circumventing operator-specific restrictions.

The speed of games on slot machines would also be curtailed, with the maximum play speed set to 2 seconds per reel-spin. Stakes would be capped at €5 per game, boosting the time between bets for each player. After 90 minutes of continued play, a 15-minute cooling-off period would be triggered, during which players would be served videos raising awareness about gambling-related harm.

From an anti-money laundering perspective, a concurrent draft amendment seeks to tighten compliance rules around self-hosted cryptoasset wallets. It would obligate gambling operators to rigorously assess the money laundering, terrorism financing and sanctions evasion risks associated with self-hosted wallet transactions, and evolve the company’s compliance program in response. The risk mitigation measures would include a range of identity verification steps, such as enhanced international due diligence and transaction monitoring, although the text falls short of a blanket requirement for Know Your Customer.

The draft gambling law is progressing through Parliament, with a public consultation ending on July 15 and the government having introduced the text as bill 594 d.B. on August 5. That notification triggers a 3-month European Union review period, in which the EC will screen the law for compliance with existing passports.

But the more important point is the direction of travel: from monopoly to competition, with much stricter licensing and an imperative to share data between operators in the interests of player protection. This would be radioactive in Germany, where the much-lauded 2021 amendments already have their critics.

Coupled with stricter anti-money laundering rules in gambling and digital assets, Austria will quietly watermark itself among the world's toughest online gambling spaces. The regime would be “voluntary” but for a regulator that's extremely serious about the welfare of consumers – and, to a lesser extent, the integrity of the gaming sector.