An enterprising online gambler in Germany has used the local illegality of online casinos to get out of paying his VISA bill.

According to a report on German legal advisory platform Anwalt, the District Court of Munich recently dismissed a claim brought by Landesbank Berlin AG against a gambler who refused to pay the charges he’d made with his VISA card playing with an unspecified internationally licensed online casino.

Since the customer in this case didn’t deny making the charges, under normal circumstances the bank would be well within its rights in launching legal action to compel the deadbeat to pay his tab. But the gambler argued that the bank had no right to collect due to online casino gambling being strictly verboten in Germany.

According to Bundesgerichtshof (BGH, or Federal Court of Justice) case law, banks agree to fulfill the obligations of cardholders to merchants but have no special checking and control obligations due to the transaction fulfilling the cash-reserve function.