Germany’s Oddset betting under fire as four bettors claim €300k winnings

Germany’s perpetually troubled sports betting market is facing fresh upheaval after customers of a single lottery retailer claimed an outsized share of betting winnings.

On Friday, Andreas Schmidt, chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in the state of Sachsen-Anhalt, called for his state to remove itself from the Oddset betting business run by Germany’s state lottery operators following word of an apparent consortium of customers and a single retailer.

Schmidt claimed that Sachsen-Anhalt accounted for four of the top-10 highest-spending users of the Oddset product in 2017-18. Moreover, these four users, whose €3m in total wagers accounted for around 1% of all betting sales during the period, also claimed €300k in winnings, representing nearly half of all winnings by Oddset customers in the state.

The four players included Marie Hebnarova, a lottery retailer in Zerbst, with whom all the suspect wagers were placed. Lottery retailers aren’t supposed to participate in Oddset contests, and Hebranova has since ceased running this Oddset operation.