Legal casino gambling age in LuxembourgLuxembourg has one of the most restrictive gambling frameworks in the European Union, but it is not a prohibition regime in the strict sense. The amended Law of 20 April 1977 on games of chance and sports betting starts from a general ban on operating games of chance and then allows a small number of exceptions. In practice, two bodies supply nearly all legal gambling in the country: the Loterie Nationale, which runs lotteries, sports betting and video lottery terminals, and Casino 2000 in Mondorf-les-Bains, the only casino with a government concession. Luxembourg has no licensing system for private online casinos or bookmakers. Since October 2025 the government has said that it intends to give these two operators a legal monopoly, and a first bill against illegal gaming machines has been before parliament since January 2026.
Key points
- Gambling is governed by the amended Law of 20 April 1977. Article 1 lays down a general ban on operating games of chance; lotteries and sports betting organised by the Loterie Nationale are excluded from that ban.
- Casino 2000 in Mondorf-les-Bains, opened in 1983, is the only authorised casino. Its concession was extended in July 2019 for 20 years. The state takes a progressive levy on its gaming revenue, rising from 10% to 80%.
- There is no online licensing regime. In a 2022 parliamentary answer the Ministry of Justice stated that only the Loterie Nationale may offer online gambling from Luxembourg, but that operators lawfully established in other EU states cannot simply be prohibited from serving residents.
- Bill No. 8679, tabled on 7 January 2026, would raise penalties for illegal gaming and expressly penalise knowing participation in prohibited games. The Council of State raised formal objections on 10 June 2026, and the bill was still in committee at the time of review.
- We found no national self-exclusion register. Casino 2000 runs its own voluntary exclusion scheme, and free, anonymous help is available from the ZEV, run by Anonym Glécksspiller asbl.
Last reviewed: 6 October 2026.
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Historical development
The modern framework dates from the end of the Second World War. According to the Loterie Nationale, the national lottery was created by a grand-ducal decree of 13 July 1945 and is administered by the Œuvre Nationale de Secours Grande-Duchesse Charlotte, a public charitable foundation. All profits from its games are passed to the Œuvre, which redistributes them to social, cultural and sporting causes.
Casino gambling came later. Attempts to open a casino in Luxembourg had failed repeatedly since the nineteenth century, according to the Wikipedia entry on Casino 2000, which also states that Mondorf-les-Bains was chosen in September 1977 as the only place where a casino could operate. This followed the adoption of the Law of 20 April 1977 on the operation of games of chance and sports betting. Paperjam reports that Casino 2000 opened in 1983; its 30th-anniversary coverage gives the date as 16 April 1983.
The 1977 law was amended in 2009 when parliament reformed the status of the Œuvre and the Loterie Nationale. The explanatory documents of bill No. 5955 show that it inserted a new Article 1(2) excluding “lotteries and bets on sporting events organised by the Loterie Nationale” from the 1977 regime. The bill was adopted as the Law of 22 May 2009 on the Œuvre and the Loterie Nationale.
The Loterie Nationale has since widened its offer. Its company profile lists EuroMillions (from 2004), Lotto 6aus49 (2006), PMU horse-race betting (2012), Oddset sports betting (2016), video lottery terminals branded VideoLot (2021) and the online betting site LoterieSport.lu (2024).
Legal framework
The central statute is the amended Law of 20 April 1977 on the operation of games of chance and sports betting, published on the official legislation portal Legilux. The Minister of Justice summarised it in answer No. 5410 of 18 January 2022 to a parliamentary question. The answer states that “Article 1 of the amended law of 20 April 1977 lays down the principle of a general prohibition on the operation of games of chance in Luxembourg”, and that “lotteries and bets on sporting events organised by the Loterie Nationale” are excluded from that prohibition.
The law then provides for limited, authorised exceptions. The coordinated text reproduced in the parliamentary file on bill No. 8679 shows the main ones:
- Casinos (Articles 5 to 7). By way of derogation from the legal prohibitions, an authorisation may be granted to casinos. Under Article 7, the authorisation “is granted by decision of the Government in Council”, that is, by the Cabinet.
- Sports betting by other operators (Article 4). Operating bets on sporting events is subject to the prior authorisation of the Minister of Justice. The minister reported in 2022 that only two requests had been received in eight years.
- Small lotteries. According to the 2009 bill, lotteries organised by others, such as charities or associations, need authorisation from the municipal council when the value of tickets issued is up to €12,500 and from the minister above that amount.
- Criminal provisions. The law punishes unauthorised operation of games and, under Articles 15 and 16, advertising for unauthorised gaming establishments. The 2022 answer gives the penalty for such advertising as imprisonment of eight days to one month and a fine of €251 to €15,000.
The law is thus a prohibition with statutory exceptions, not a licensing model in which any company meeting published criteria can obtain a licence. In practice it works as a monopoly: one operator holds the exclusive right to each kind of game.
EU law context. Luxembourg must respect the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and in particular the freedom to provide services in Article 56. The European Commission states that “there is no sector-specific EU legislation in the field of gambling services”. Member states may organise gambling as they see fit within the fundamental freedoms, and the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has ruled many times on national restrictions. The Commission’s non-binding Recommendation 2014/478/EU of 14 July 2014 sets out principles for protecting online players and preventing gambling by minors. The Justice Minister, Elisabeth Margue, referred to this case law in October 2025, saying, as reported by SBC News: “According to European case law, you can create such a monopoly, but then you must protect your citizens.” We found no CJEU judgment on the Luxembourg law itself.
Regulator and licensing model
Luxembourg has no independent gambling regulator. The Ministry of Justice is the competent ministry: it authorises sports betting by operators other than the Loterie, prepares legislation and answers parliamentary questions on the sector. Casino concessions are decided by the Government in Council. Offences under the law are prosecuted through the ordinary criminal courts; the public prosecutors gave formal opinions on the 2026 bill.
Casino 2000. The only casino concession belongs to Casino 2000 in Mondorf-les-Bains. In the 2022 answer, the minister stated that no new casino authorisation request had been received in eight years and that “only the duration of the concession of Casino 2000 in Mondorf was extended in July 2019 for a period of 20 years”. Lesfrontaliers.lu gives the end of the current authorisation as 2039. According to its own website, the casino has slot machines, electronic games and table games, and entry is reserved for adults who are not excluded from gaming.
Loterie Nationale. The Loterie Nationale operates draw games, scratch cards, sports betting through retail terminals and online, PMU horse-race betting and VideoLot terminals. Its gross gaming revenue (GGR, stakes less prizes paid) was €90.9 million in 2024, according to a Loterie communiqué reported by Tout-Luxembourg. Le Quotidien reported a record €99.2 million for 2025, a rise of 9%. VideoLot, present in more than 600 retail outlets, produced €41.8 million of that total and online sports betting on LoterieSport.lu about €5 million.
Sports betting. Betting on sporting events is lawful when offered by the Loterie Nationale, which is outside the 1977 ban, or by an operator authorised by the Minister of Justice. In practice the Loterie is the only supplier we identified. It sells Oddset bets at more than 160 retail terminals and, since September 2024, through LoterieSport.lu, which offers bets on around 40 sports, according to L’essentiel. The Loterie presented the site as “a major step in combating illegal gambling” (Le Quotidien also reported the launch).
Online gambling: what is permitted and how it is enforced
Luxembourg has no regime under which a private company can obtain a licence to offer online casino games, poker or betting. The only lawful domestic online offer is that of the Loterie Nationale: online lottery products and, since 2024, sports betting on LoterieSport.lu. Casino 2000 has no online casino.
The Ministry of Justice set out its view of foreign online operators in answer No. 5410 of January 2022. It stated that Luxembourg law does not allow a company offering online games of chance to be established in the country, apart from the Loterie Nationale. It then drew on EU law: “games offered on the Internet from countries where the activity is legal cannot be prohibited”, and “Article 56 TFEU thus applies to an operator of games of chance established in a Member State” that operates exclusively over the internet. In other words, the government treated operators lawfully established in another EU member state as able to rely on the freedom to provide services. This is the government’s interpretation. We found no published Luxembourg court ruling that tests it, and the CJEU case law referred to above allows member states some room to restrict cross-border gambling, so the position is not settled.
We found no statutory system in Luxembourg for blocking gambling websites at the level of internet service providers, and no list of blocked domains or payment-blocking rules of the kind used in neighbouring countries. In October 2025 the minister said that geo-blocking was among the questions still under discussion.
Enforcement has instead targeted land-based illegal gaming. The explanatory memorandum to bill No. 8679 describes a growth of illegal gaming in cafés and bars. Operators have used the “outdated formulations” of the 1977 law to install terminals that are presented as paid internet access but in fact give access only to games of chance operated over the internet. According to L’essentiel, the minister reported in February 2024 that 15 cases under the gambling law had been opened since 2019, none of which had led to a conviction.
Advertising. Advertising for unauthorised gaming establishments is a criminal offence under Articles 15 and 16 of the 1977 law. The 2022 answer adds that false advertising implying the involvement of the state or of a charitable body is prohibited. Bill No. 8679 would create a specific offence of advertising illegal games.
Position of players
The legal position of players is narrower than that of operators. The 1977 law is aimed at those who operate, host or advertise games of chance. In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision in the current law that makes it an offence for a resident to play with a foreign online operator, and no reported prosecution or fine of a player for doing so.
This may change. Bill No. 8679 contains a new Article 17 which, according to the parliamentary file, would penalise “anyone who participates, in any place and in any form whatever, in prohibited or unauthorised games of chance”. The proposed penalty is six months to one year of imprisonment and a fine of €10,000 to €25,000. The commentary to the bill explains that, as a délit (a mid-level criminal offence), the offence would require intent: the player must have known, or should have known, that the games were prohibited and have chosen freely to take part. It is unclear whether it would reach online play with operators licensed in other EU states. The bill had not been adopted at the time of review.
Players with foreign operators also lack domestic protections: there is no Luxembourg regulator to complain to, and Casino 2000’s exclusion scheme does not apply online.
Taxation
Operators
Casino 2000 pays a progressive levy on the gross revenue from its games. According to L’essentiel, reporting a parliamentary answer by the Minister of Justice in February 2024, the rate is “10% up to €45,000, reaching 80% above €8.1 million”. The levy produced the following revenue for the state:
| Year | Casino levy revenue |
|---|---|
| 2019 | €22.4 million |
| 2020 | €11.9 million |
| 2021 | €21.1 million |
| 2022 | €20.1 million |
| 2023 | €24.2 million |
Lesfrontaliers.lu describes the levy simply as 80% of gaming revenue, which corresponds to the top band of the scale. We could not read the instrument that sets the scale, so the band thresholds are given as reported.
The Loterie Nationale is treated differently, because its profits go to the Œuvre. Its director of communications told Lesfrontaliers.lu in November 2022 that the Loterie itself is exempt from taxes other than VAT and payroll taxes. The 2009 bill also explains that the Loterie, as a game operator, is exempt from the lotto tax, while it remains liable when it acts as an agent for games of other operators.
Players
Winnings paid by the Loterie Nationale are not taxed. The Loterie stated in 2022 that “the totality of winnings distributed by the Loterie Nationale are exempt from tax” (Lesfrontaliers.lu). We did not find an official tax administration statement on casino winnings or winnings from foreign online operators. Players with large or regular winnings from abroad should seek advice from the Administration des contributions directes or a tax adviser.
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
The age of majority in Luxembourg is 18. Casino 2000 admits only adults. Bill No. 8679 would add express offences of offering gambling to minors or letting them into gaming areas, with a limited exception for traditional village lotteries.
We found no national self-exclusion register covering all operators in Luxembourg. The main exclusion tool is Casino 2000’s own “Play It Safe” programme. According to the casino, a person can ban themselves from entry for a period of one month to five years. The period can be neither reduced nor revoked before it ends, and re-entry is possible only after an interview with the Play It Safe team. Limits on the number of visits are also available. The team can be reached at [email protected] or on +352 621 342 000.
Specialist help is provided by the ZEV (Zenter fir exzessiivt Verhalen a Verhalenssucht, centre for excessive behaviour and behavioural addictions). It is run by Anonym Glécksspiller asbl, an association founded in 2003 because there was no support service for problem gamblers in Luxembourg. The Ministry of Health has funded it since 2010 and has paid for its gambling-related staff since 2020. The ZEV offers free and anonymous counselling and therapy for people with gambling problems and for their families.
Demand for help has risen. In the parliamentary debate of October 2025, the Minister of Health, Martine Deprez, said that the number of people seeking help for gambling addiction almost tripled between 2020 and 2024, to about 100 a year, and that state support for the ZEV rose from €220,000 in 2020 to €560,000 in 2024 (Yogonet; Luxtoday). Our responsible gambling guide sets out general steps for keeping gambling under control and for recognising warning signs.
Recent and upcoming developments
- Monopoly reform announced (October 2025). During an interpellation by the deputy Dan Biancalana (LSAP), the Minister of Justice confirmed plans for a legal monopoly in favour of the Loterie Nationale and the official casino. Cafés would be allowed only Loterie Nationale machines, and all other forms of gambling, including so-called “skill games”, would be banned (Luxtoday, 31 October 2025). For online gambling, the government said it was examining whether the casino could be licensed to operate online, while describing the issue as complex under EU law (SBC News).
- Bill No. 8679 (pending). Tabled on 7 January 2026 by the Minister of Justice, the bill would widen the definition of games of chance to games that depend at least partly on the player’s skill. It would raise the penalty for operating illegal games to five to eight years’ imprisonment and a fine of €250,000 to €500,000, and the penalty for café operators who tolerate them to three to five years and €150,000 to €250,000. It would also simplify seizure of machines (bill text). The Chamber of Deputies describes it as the first phase of a wider reform, which the government intends to base on a monopoly.
- Council of State opinion (10 June 2026). The Council of State issued several formal objections (oppositions formelles), its strongest form of criticism. According to Paperjam, it found some criminal offences too imprecise to meet constitutional requirements, objected to compulsory confiscation of machines where the owner is not convicted, and raised questions about the compatibility of the Loterie Nationale’s de facto monopoly with EU law. The government must amend the text before it can proceed.
- Chamber of Commerce opinion (29 June 2026). The Chamber of Commerce published its opinion on the bill on 29 June 2026. The parliamentary dossier showed the bill still before the Justice Committee, with no amendments or plenary vote, at its last update in July 2026.
- Online regulation (not yet proposed). No bill to regulate online casino gaming had been tabled by the date of review. Whether Casino 2000 will be allowed to run an online casino, and how foreign sites would be restricted, remains open.
Casino listings for players in Luxembourg
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not by themselves show that an operator is authorised in Luxembourg: no private operator holds a Luxembourg online casino licence, because the law does not provide one, and the only lawful domestic online offer is that of the Loterie Nationale. The listings must not be read as an indication that a given operator is licensed locally or that playing with it is lawful, and readers should follow the progress of bill No. 8679, which would penalise knowing participation in prohibited games.
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Sources and further reading
- Grand Duchy of Luxembourg / Legilux, Loi modifiée du 20 avril 1977 relative à l’exploitation des jeux de hasard et des paris relatifs aux épreuves sportives, consolidated text (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Ministry of Justice / Chambre des Députés, Réponse à la question parlementaire n° 5410 sur les jeux de hasard sur internet (2022).
- Chambre des Députés, Projet de loi n° 8679 portant modification de la loi modifiée du 20 avril 1977, dépôt (2026).
- Chambre des Députés, Projet de loi 8679, dossier consolidé (2026).
- Chambre des Députés, Dossier parlementaire 8679 (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Chambre des Députés, Un nouvel arsenal de lutte contre les jeux de hasard illégaux (2026).
- Chambre de Commerce, Avis sur le projet de loi n° 8679 (7051FCI) (2026).
- Paperjam, Jeux de hasard illégaux: le Conseil d’État freine la réforme (2026).
- Chambre des Députés, Projet de loi n° 5955 relative à l’Œuvre Nationale de Secours Grande-Duchesse Charlotte et à la Loterie Nationale (2009).
- Loterie Nationale, Qui sommes-nous ? (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Casino 2000, Casino: jeu responsable (accessed 6 October 2026).
- L’essentiel, Les jeux de casino remplissent de plus en plus les caisses de l’État (2024).
- Lesfrontaliers.lu, L’État rafle la mise grâce au Casino 2000 (2024).
- Lesfrontaliers.lu, Jouer (et gagner) à la Loterie nationale: c’est sans risque sur vos impôts (2022).
- Paperjam, Le Casino 2000 fête ses 35 ans (2018).
- Paperjam, Le Casino a quadruplé ses surfaces en 30 ans (2013).
- Wikipedia, Casino 2000 (accessed 6 October 2026).
- L’essentiel, La Loterie nationale se lance dans les paris sportifs sur Internet (2024).
- Le Quotidien, La Loterie nationale lance son site de paris sportifs (2024).
- Tout-Luxembourg, 2024 a été « une année record » pour la Loterie nationale (2025).
- Le Quotidien, Un revenu record de 99,2 millions d’euros pour la Loterie nationale en 2025 (2026).
- Luxtoday, Luxembourg is preparing a monopoly on lotteries and casinos (2025).
- Yogonet, Luxembourg plans gambling monopoly, new measures as addiction cases rise (2025).
- SBC News, Luxembourg favours state monopoly in gambling reforms (2025).
- ZEV / Anonym Glécksspiller asbl, À propos de nous (accessed 6 October 2026).
- ZEV, Glücksspielsucht (accessed 6 October 2026).
- European Commission, Gambling (accessed 6 October 2026).
- European Commission, Recommendation 2014/478/EU on principles for the protection of consumers and players of online gambling services (2014).
