Best Austria Online Casinos 2020

Online Casinos in Austria 

The number of online casinos in Austria is nowhere near as high as other major European countries. The laws governing these casinos have changed somewhat over the years and a number of top online casinos have actually fallen foul of them.

Bet-At-Home is a great example of this. It used to be one of the biggest players in the Austrian online casino industry, but it encountered issues and was forced to stop operations there. Basically, the Austrian government didn’t like the fact that it was using a Maltese gaming license to offer gambling services within Austria. This is actually very common and even now there are Austrian online casinos doing the same thing, but for whatever reason the authorities chose to single out Bet-At-Home and they paid the price for it.

Before we discuss the somewhat convoluted and restrictive gambling laws it’s worth noting that these don’t really impact on the average player as much as you might think. The government does not care about the players who risk a few Euros here and there. They put their efforts into shutting down the casinos that operate illegally and the payment providers that facilitate such operations.

So, even if you suspect that your chosen online casino may not be operating entirely within the realms of Austrian law, the issue is theirs, not yours, and you should be safe from prosecution—although you shouldn’t hold us to that statement.

Austrian Online Gambling Laws

Prior to the 2000s, gambling was tightly controlled in Austria and it was somewhat rare as a result. This was before the age of online gambling took hold—a time when it was much easier for authorities to keep track of all gambling that was taking place in a country.

Fast forward a few years and it was a different story. Online gambling was much more common and a number of sports books, poker sites, and casinos were operating within the country, usually with non-Austrian gaming licenses.

In the 2010s, with problem gambling on the rise, the government moved to put a halt to this. They made it very difficult for anyone to setup an online or offline casino, but they also made it clear that it was not illegal to gamble for small amounts of money. So, on the one hand they tightened their grip on the commercial casinos (both online and offline) but on the other hand they made it so that the average Austrian didn’t need to fear reprisal if they were arranging card games at home or placing bets with friends.

There are casinos operating legally within Austria, but there are limits on how many of these can exist, they all need licenses and they all have to abide by strict rules. This is all true of Austrian online casinos, which need to acquire specific licenses in order to operate and can only offer their services to players within Austria.