Schleswig-Holstein, one of Germany’s states, has become the country’s first entity to legalize online gambling.

Can the rest of the country be far behind?

I think not.

The move, which is anticipated to open up the whole of the German online poker market, pre-empts the Government´s efforts to introduce a new German State Gambling Treaty before the current regulations expire in December.

I think this is an excellent move by officials.

Previous to the move, the country followed the national policy of banning online gambling – a policy which was originally put in place to protect the Government´s monopoly on lotteries and sports betting .

But guess what? About  2.2 million Germans already have “offshore” accounts with a number of online poker and other gambling sites.

So…like I said. Inevitable.