The Federal Cartel Office condemned the restrictions imposed by the 16 state lottery operators on the sale of tickets via commercial lottery agents at shops and petrol stations.

The Lotto’s said they would appeal the judgement, arguing that making lottery tickets more widely available would only stoke gambling addiction among consumers.

The ruling also declared illegal the practice by which state lottery companies carve up the market along state boundaries.

The Cartel Office said its decision had no bearing on similarly structured controls on sports betting by German state operators. The German state of Saxony recently banned Austria's bwin.com (formerly betandwin.com) from taking sports bets in Germany, erasing a third of the company's stock market valuation.