Germany ban online gambling?

Germany's way of ringing in the New Year should bring a shudder of familiarity to fans of online poker. Faced with pending complaints in the EU from some major European online gambling firms, Germany decided that rather than be a good European citizen, they were going to mount the ramparts and ban online gambling in its entirety.
The votes were conducted in each of Germany's 16 member states and reached a legal majority in time for Jan. 1st, meaning that right now, in the wink of an eye, in governmental terms, Germans have lost a chunk of their online freedom. It's a shame, really, from a country that's had historical reasons to be one of the world's most open and tolerant toward its citizenry.