European Union: Court of Justice of the European Union issued ruling clarifying tort liability for unlicensed online gambling provider

On 15 January 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment in Case C-77/24, Wunner, concerning the application of Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 on non-contractual obligations (the Rome II Regulation) to tort liability for unlicensed online gambling. Following a request for a preliminary ruling from the Supreme Court of Justice (Austria), the CJEU held that legal actions seeking to establish tort liability against company directors for the infringement of national prohibitions on offering games of chance without a licence are not excluded from the scope of the Rome II Regulation, which determines which jurisdiction's laws apply in relation to tort or delict liability. The Court further determined that, pursuant to Article 4(1) of the regulation, the damage is deemed to have occurred in the Member State in which the player is habitually resident. The case involved an Austrian player seeking to recover gambling losses from the directors of a Maltese gambling company that provided online games in Austria without the licence required under the Federal Gambling Act.