Version: 18082003
Editor: Franka Pals
Publisher: Novamedia
Disclaimer: Novamedia disclaims all liability for information provided within the "Novamedia European Gaming and Lottery Files".The information is supplied by independent journalistic sources. No parts of these files may be reproduced in any form by print, photo print, microfilm or otherwise, or re-distributed electronically in any form without written permission from the publisher.
For the Big Mac (McDonald) and the Original Whopper Sandwhich (Burger King) fast food addicts, here some history on Hamburg, starting in the year AD825 with the building of the "Hammaburg", a moated castle built between the Alster and Elbe rivers. This was apparently a combination of earth works and a wooden palisade type of fortress. The second part of the name is clearly "-burg" for "castle", but there are three contenders for the origin of the 'Ham-' part. These are reported as being:
Hamburg, after Rotterdam, is the second biggest harbour in Europe and is surrounded by the states Niedersachsen and Schleswig-Holstein. The "Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg" is one of the 16 states of the federation, and is the second largest city in Germany. Hamburg is a city as well as a state.
Hamburg is also culturally and commercially the centre of all of Northern Germany. The metropolitan region consists of 3.5 million people - for all of them, Hamburg is the shopping and cultural metropolis. The municipal area with its 755 km2 is seven times the size of Paris and 2 1?2 times that of London. For this very reason Hamburg presents an exceptionally high standard of living and housing.
With 30 m2 living space per person, Hamburg enjoys the largest average personal living space of all big cities in the world. In fact, 14% of the city is made up of green and recreation areas. Hamburg boasts 2302 bridges, more than the total of all bridges that Venice and Amsterdam have to offer. With more than 90 consulates, Hamburg ranks only second to New York as the city with the most consulates in the world. Hamburg has always been an open-minded commercial and cultural centre.
Hamburg's beginnings are not to be found along the Elbe River, rather at its tributary, the Alster River. Not far from where this minor tributary flowed into the Elbe, an initial settlement was founded along its banks (old Saxon: "ham") in the 8th century. Then around 950 A.D. the Hammaburg was established right here. The 12th century showed the importance of the Elbe growing at an ever faster pace. Commerce in the North European region developed in leaps and bounds. Then in the year 1189 the Emperor Barbarossa conferred upon Hamburg, the privilege of imposing custom duties on the Elbe River and henceforth became a Free City of the Empire.
An Inter-City-Network of the middle Ages was instituted and duly named the Hanse. Hamburg developed to become the most significant harbour of the Hanse and served as a central transhipment site for grain, cloth, furs, herrings, spices, timber and metals. Hamburg, for its part, gained prominence owing to its prime export commodity: beer.
After the discovery of America and the sea route to Asia, Hamburg became one of the most significant ports of entry in Europe. With the increase in shipping and global trade during the second half of the 19th century, Hamburg had to further expand its harbour and storage capacities. The erection of the Speicherstadt (1881-1888), a harbour storage city district, was the first step. In the following decades the harbour on the opposite side of the Elbe was expanded.
The establishment of the free port (1888) enabled Hamburg to become one of the largest storage locations for coffee, cocoa, spices and carpets. The attractiveness of the harbour was vastly improved by the construction of the Baltic-North Sea Canal (1895), since a direct link to the Baltic Sea region was now guaranteed.
Only beginning in 1860 with commencing industrialisation, were more and more outlying communities being incorporated. In 1900 the city population totalled 1 million people. With the Greater-Hamburg-Law of 1937 the Hamburg city limits were set to today's still valid borders.
The port of Hamburg is the focal point for the trade concluded with Eastern and Northern Europe. Hamburg places second as the largest container harbour in Europe and seventh worldwide. It's only 120 km away from the high seas and is able to accommodate the biggest container ships the world has to offer. The ideal inland location, as well as the excellent rail, water and highway connections makes it one of the most attractive harbours available.
amburg is also home to highly specialised industry. It is a leader in medicine and biotechnology as well as harbouring one of the global centres of airplane manufacture: here is where the large-scale Airbus A380 is being erected. The Otto Mail-Order Enterprise and Helm AG (Chemicals) are global market leaders. And anyone playing on a Steinway, rubbing in some Nivea or using a Montblanc Fountain Pen to write with, is using a product made in Hamburg. The many products of the Hamburg press are read in any language, all over the world. The HWF, Hamburg Business Development Corporation, act as a service partner and main contact for any company wanting to expand, restructure or relocate in the Greater Hamburg Region. .
| Population: | 1,686,100 (2003) Area: 755 km2 |
|---|---|
| Currency: | EURO (EUR) 1US Dollar = 0.89 Euro 1 Euro (EUR) = 1.13 US Dollar (USD) (August 16, 2003) |
| Internet | Penetration is the highest of all German States with 53.5%
*Internet use = min. 1 x in the past 12 months (business or private). |
The modern number lotto originates from the so called "Lotto di Genova" in Genua, Italy (1575). In 1643 the forerunner of the betting product "Lotto 5 out of 45" was first signalled in the Italy.
Hamburg was the first State lottery in the German history in 1611. And lotto became so popular that there has been talk of a heavy 'lotto fever". So it was not strange that a reaction came from the moralists pushing through a ban on organising lotteries (1800).
After the Second World War the football toto was blown over from Great Britain, where the first toto had been organised in 1921, to Germany. On April 27th, 1948, the "Staatliche Bayrische Fußballtoto" (State Bavarian Football Toto) was founded.
The other states followed soon. In the beginning of the fifties several different Toto Blocs were formed: the North-South-Block existing of Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Niedersachsen and Bayern and another bloc was a South-West Bloc: Nordrhein-Westfalen, Hessen, Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz. On November 11th, 1956, the German Totoblock was founded. The common betting product was Toto-12 (1, 2, x). The Total turnover of the football toto in whole Germany was in 1955: 492.1 million DM. Two year later the Blocwide total turnover was only 211.7 million DM. In that year the lotto became the leading betting product with a year turnover of 809.9 million DM
Website: www.lotto-hh.de
Nordwest Lotto und Toto Hamburg operates the state lottery on behalf of the city of Hamburg. Nordwest Lotto and Toto Hamburg - state lottery of the city of Hamburg - is an economically independent trust estate without legal capacities of the city of Hamburg. All surpluses go into the budget of the city of Hamburg. The basis thereof is the lottery contract between the city of Hamburg, represented by the tax authorities, and the Hamburgische Landesbank-Girozentrale.
The Nordwest Lotto und Toto Hamburg is member of the German Lotto- and Toto Block (Deutschen Lotto- und Toto-block), DLTB. This is a cooperation of all 16 Lottery operators in the 16 German states. Main purpose of this cooperation is the pooling of the stakes, the pay outs to the winners, the common marketing, etc. Every three year there is another Lotto- and Toto company managing/coordinating (Federführung) the Block. From 2001 the Lotto-Toto Sachsen-Anhalt is responsible for the Block's organisation.
The Block's products in 2002:
Countries participating in 'RennQuintett':
Nordrhein-Westfalen, Bayern, Hamburg und Rheinland-Pfalz. This betting product will probably be stopped per September 30th, 2003.
Hamburg operates the lottery Lotterie 'Bingo - Die Umweltlotterie' together with the countries: Niedersachsen,Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
On January 1st, 2002, the Minister-Presidents of the 16 German states agreed that the Lotto companies of these countries would support financially the organisation of the World Championship Football 2006, to be organised in Germany.
The German Football Federation (DFB) will receive 12% above the fixed turnover of 2001 of all the Oddset betting till 2006. The generated financial needs should be used for cultural aspects surrounding the World Championship, as well as for the (re)construction of the stadiums.
The Law "Gesetz zu dem Staatsvertrag über die Bereitstellung von Mitteln aus den Oddset-Sportwetten für gemeinnützige Zwecke im Zusammenhang mit der Veranstaltung der FIFA Fußball-Weltmeisterschaft Deutschland 2006 (October 1st, 2002)", Law for the State treaty to put at ones disposal of financial means coming from the Oddset-betting for the common use in relation with the organisation of the FIFA World Championship Football in Germany in 2006, makes it possible that from 2002 till 2006 financial means can be set aside to be used for the organisation of the World Championship to be organised in Germany.
From 2002 till 2006 each Lotto and Totocompany sets aside yearly 12,5% over the more lay-in from the 2001 Oddset-betting turnover. This money, which will not be more than 130 million Euro, will be remitted to the DFB (German Football Association).
The turnover 2001 of Oddsetbetting in the separate states is laid down in Euros as follows:
For all states:
Also Lotto Hamburg was hit by lower economic conditions, which effected the financial results in 2002 with a turnover of 234.0 millions Euro (- 7,2%). 2001 was a record year with a turnover of 252.0 million Euro.
The core product was the Lotto with a share of 64,8 %.
Lottery tax and good causes produced 40.3 million.17.6 million was the total commission paid out to the salespoints.
Each inhabitant of Hamburg spent in 2002 per week an average of 2.51 Euro. (2001: 2.75) on Lotto-Products. In comparison with the Block "Nordwest Lotto und Toto Hamburg" could not hold the number 1 position, which was taken over by Saarland (2.59).
The average pro capita lay-in per week for the whole Block was:1.94 (2001 - 1.98).
| State | lay-in |
|---|---|
| Saarland | 2.59 |
| HAMBURG | 2.51 |
| Schleswig-Holstein | 2.24 |
| Niedersachsen | 2.18 |
| Rheinland-Pfalz | 2.17 |
| Nordrhein-Westfalen | 2.06 |
| Bremen | 2.02 |
| Baden-Württemberg | 1.97 |
| Bayern | 1.97 |
| Berlin | 1.96 |
| Hessen | 1.96 |
| Brandenburg | 1.40 |
| Sachsen-Anhalt | 1.38 |
| Sachsen | 1.32 |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 1.27 |
| Thüringen | 1.19 |
Number lotteries
Lotto:
UmweltLotterie (Environment lottery)- Bingo:
GlücksSpiral (Lucky Spiral):
Zusatzlotterien (Extra/auxiliary lotteries):
Sportsbetting:
In 2002 EUR 109,921,739.57 was remitted to price winners. The Win and Lost Account shows a surplus of EUR 53,242,681.37, which has been transferred to the State of Hamburg, as well as lottery tax of the amount of EUR 39,005,897.75. So, in total Hamburg received: 92,250,579.12.
GlücksSpirale and "Bingo - Die Umweltlotterie" raised, above that, a total of EUR 1,278,000 for good causes.
Exact turnover for 2002 exists of lay-in (EUR225,590,853.90) and costs (EUR8,444,540.67) is EUR 34,035,394,57.
Paid commissions: EUR 177.550,389.97.
Since September 25th, 2001, via the homepage of www.lotto-hh.de one may participate on-line in Lotto, Toto-Auswahlwette, Toto-Ergebniswette, the GlücksSpirale and Oddset-Kombi-Wette.
vLotto Hamburg cooperates for Internet issues (Lotto Game System, ILS) together with the Lotto companies of Berlin and Brandenburg EssNet provided Nordwest Lotto und Toto Hamburg with the ELOS echannels T interface to the ELOS system, to be able to offer their games via the Internet, accepting lottery sell transactions directly into the ELOS system.
The ELOS system has been designed to adhere to the unique concept of single-point of-control, allowing sell transactions directly into the central system via ELOS e-channels ™ , no matter if the transactions come from on-line terminals or the Internet."
Since the beginning of 2002 Tipp24.de is an official Partner of Lotto Hamburg, Lotto Brandenburg, Lotto Niedersachsen, Lotto Schleswig-Holstein and Lotto Rheinland-Pfalz.
Tipp24.de is the leading electronic 'salespoint' in the whole of the Bundes Republic, for the State Lotto, ODDSET, GlücksSpirale and the Klassenlotterien (NKL / SKL Class lotteries) which can be played without extra costs, day and night. Since Autumn 2002 Tipp24.de also offers to its clients Lotto playing communities.
Tipp24 AG was founded in September,1999, by Jens Schumann and Marc Peters and are established in Hamburg. At this moment the company has a 55 person workforce in Germany and Spain. Bets can also be set via WAP, PDA and i-mode. Via internet and telephone (SMS) prizewinners are informed real-time.
Always without extra costs. Recently some famous German magazines like TV Movie and Tomorrow nominated Tipp24.de as Germany's reference internet platform for official lottery.
Owners of the Tipp24.de AG company are the founders, private investors and the Venture Capital Gesellschaft Earlybird.
In 2002 the turnover was 71 million Euro (2001 - 43 million Euro). In July, 2003, the company has a data base of more than 500,000 customers.
Started from August 1st, 2003, Nordwest Lotto and Toto Hamburg are securing their internal online administration by implementing digital signatures. The city of Hamburg's state lottery, which is considered one of the most efficient and successful lottery enterprises in Germany, has selected TC TrustCenter's signature cards to secure its business.
With the implementation of the digital signature, TC TrustCenter has created a new security standard as well as the basis for process digitalisation within Nordwest Lotto and Toto in Hamburg. All online transactions are now secured in accordance with strict criteria through the use of qualified electronic signatures, nowadays considered equally acceptable as the classic graphic signature. With roughly 20 million play and payment transactions, Nordwest Lotto and Toto is dealing with a tremendously high number of processes. This is where TC TrustCenter's socalled "unlimited Smartcards" come into play because they were especially created to automatically sign large numbers of documents. "The implementation of digital signatures provided by TC TrustCenter shows that security plays an important role at Nordwest Lotto and Toto. Now the way is clear for a complete digitalisation of our workflow," says Detlef Uhl, project manager at Nordwest Lotto and Toto. The reason of this decision by Nordwest Lotto and Toto Hamburg is the constant adding-on of products and services as well as the expansion of shopping hours and acceptance deadlines.
The use of digital signatures significantly simplifies internal processes. This technology, which can also be used for signing digital invoices and is fully compliant with the German Signature Act, meeting all requirements of security and authenticity.
The Law "Gesetz über die Zulassung einer öffentlichen Spielbank" (Law on the permitting of a public casino) in Hamburg came into power from November 23, 1999.
At the same time some other laws were put out of action, such as the law concerning the closing and restriction of public casinos dated from July 1st, 1868 (meeting of settlement of the Hamburg State court).
The Senate may allow casino operations.
The founding and the operation of a public casino needs to obtain a permit according to this law.
The permit term will not be longer than 15 years.
The casino operator has to pay to the Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg a remittance of 70% of the gross player lay-in. Above that the casino operator has to make a special payment of the amount of 20% of the gross players lay-in. The responsible official may on request of the casino operator lower this special payment, as long as the casino operator is not able to realise a reasonable profit.
The casino operator is exempted from all taxes.
The Senate of Hamburg has permitted online roulette. The basic ideas in Hamburg are the following, states Tim von Toerne, general manager and the technical responsible: "The city has a law that generally allows casino operations. Nevertheless for a casino to start operations it needs a special permission (Verordung) which has its roots in the law but is a lot more specific on the terms of the permission, opening hours, games played, etc. Since the authors of the law, in the old days, did not foresee the impact of the internet technology, online casinos were not mentioned. The Minister of Finance saw enough room to manoeuvre to allow online casinos via a new "special permission" based on the old law. The reasoning was that the words of the law "allow casino operations" where formulated in general terms. Online was never explicitly excluded as a form of gambling in Hamburg - it was just not mentioned in the old law due to nonexistence at that time. Since online gambling is a form of gambling and gambling can be allowed by Hamburg Senate, the senate can allow online gambling as well. The senate has to vote on all important "special permissions". Therefore the Minister's office prepared the papers and the senate voted in its favour on May 28th, 2002."
After a testing mode and license clearings by the Senate of Hamburg of in total over three years, the 'virtual casino doors' of the online Hamburg Spielbank were opened on October 28th, 2002, at 18:00 hrs German winter time.
Operating from a bunker of sorts close to the InterContinental hotel, home of the prestigious brick and mortar Hamburg Spielbank, the real roulette is shown live online via three Web-cams with varying angles. The e-players can participate and watch via double-secured online connections.
The entire software and all the online issues have been developed in-house and the server, the software and the data are maintained also by e-dict GmbH & Co.KG , an affiliate of Spielbank Hamburg Group, fully owned by Spielbank Hamburg Jahr & Achterfeld KG. "Since we focus on live gambling", adds Tim von Toerne, Managing Director of e-dict, "we could not find anything close to our needs. Therefore we built everything ourselves. We did not apply streaming video technics like others use it, but we introduced an improved broadcasting technique of a series of snapshots which results in an improved high broadcasting quality of each individual picture. We think that quality is essential looking at a fast moving roulette wheel."
Till September 9th, 2002, e-players could for a period of thirteen weeks test the new online site. Nearly 3000 curious gamblers logged in.
e-dict's approach aims to bridge terrestrial an remote players; the same games can be played both online and offline. To make this possible, e-dict's developers installed a "half-automatic" roulette table in the Inter-Continental Spielbank, where online and offline players co-gamble via touchscreens at individual stations.
The "entrance" of the casino looks simple: Each new player (from 18 years) has to hand a copy of his identity card and give the information of a credit card (Visa, Euro/ MasterCard) to personnel of the brick and mortar Spielbank in Hamburg. Tim von Toerne adds: "We will definitely start by only accepting players from Germany to be able to streamline the gaming processes. Later we will disclose the preconditions for players with other nationalities."
The Spielbank Hamburg Jahr & Achterfeld KG operates also the following premises:
In 2001 the net drop was around 60 millions Euros before tax (= 90%).
Hamburg, Germany's biggest harbour, has become the city with the greatest offering of games of chances in Europe. The bricks-and mortar casinos and four coin-up casinos with slot machines and horse racing games are all operated by Spielbank Hamburg Jahr & Achterfeld KG. The company is owned by managing shareholder Prof. Wilfried
Achterfeld and John Jahr (from the family of the famous publishing company Gruner & Jahr) and Klaus Unger. The gross income of the company in 2001 was 118,100,424 DM (60.4 million EUR, US$52.3 million); between 85 and 90 percent (101.980.393 DM) was paid out to the state of Hamburg.