A court in Germany has made a somewhat controversial decision this week ruling that the unemployed should be banned from certain forms of online gambling.

The ruling last week comes after a Cologne tribunal banned the state-lottery Westlotto from accepting "heavy bets" off people known to be on social security and unemployment benefits.

Westlotto has reported that it will appeal the ruling made in March earlier this year as it "is and remains out of touch with reality". How would Westlotto employees know the employment status of potential punters and what constitutes a "heavy bet".

A Westlotto spokesperson, Axel Webber, commented: "To refuse to take a bet simply because of a suspicion would amount to discrimination, according to our reading of the law."

Unfortunately within the UK we see how the levels of problem gambling associated with online bingo are significantly higher than at land based bingo clubs. This comes as no surprise as it is very easy to spend money that you haven’t got online and there are more restrictions at land based clubs to protect vulnerable players.

It will be interesting to see how the situation plays out in Germany and how the new rules are policed.