Hungary’s restrictive online gambling laws have once again been taken to the woodshed by the European Union’s top court.

On Wednesday, the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU) issued a preliminary ruling in the case of UK operator Sporting Odds Ltd, a subsidiary of Sportingbet, which was fined HUF3.5m (US$13,600) for offering services to Hungarian punters without a local license.

EU law allows member states to restrict access by gambling operators licensed in other member states, provided these protectionist impulses maintain a reasonable façade of emphasizing consumer protection – by limiting citizens’ capacity to gamble excessively online – over the state’s desire to fill its coffers with gambling revenue.

The CJEU ruled that Hungary’s refusal to grant online gambling licenses to any company that didn’t run a local land-based casino was at odds with the country’s argument that its gambling rules were primarily intended to minimize the potential harms of offering its citizens too many gambling options.