Switzerland: crisis year for casinos?

Despite the Corona Year 2020, casinos in Switzerland managed to master the financial crisis. According to various media reports, the 21 licensed gambling facilities should have accepted an average income decline of 40 percent, but the separate offers about the online gambling was possible to catch the losses.

Glossy Act saves Spielbanken

The online gambling is on the rise and requires modern regulation in the digital age. Many European countries are only now clear about this fact and have one Liberalization process for online casinos And uses platforms with gambling content. Switzerland, on the other hand, has its own Legislation already subjected a reform in 2019. For example, the state -oriented casinos in the Alpine state are allowed to offer their offer on the Internet via an additional license. This is possible thanks to the so -called gaming law.

That Gaming law It is also the reason why the 21 licensed casinos in the crisis-lined Corona year 2020 did not have to accept far-reaching economic damage. According to the Swiss media landscape, the average income decline of 40 percent demonstrates the destructive intensity of corona pandemic, but most casinos are still Due to the online offer, it got off lightly.

Game Act. With the legalization of the online gambling game, the Swiss players are to be adequately protected from the potential dangers that, according to the government, assume money games. In addition, the games of chance should be safe and transparent. A non-profit purpose has also been implemented in the Geschielensgesetz, since the state net profits and parts of the gross games of the casinos are used in favor of old, left-wing and disability insurance. To date, around eight casinos in Switzerland have an additional concession for online gambling.

For example, the four establishments of Swiss Casinos in the cities of Pfäffikon, St. Gallen, Zurich and Schaffhausen would be on average with their losses. In contrast, the casino in Interlaken had to accept greater damage. Here are the Recovers by half slipped. The casinos in Bern, Baden and Lucerne came through the crisis significantly better. The losses would be between 32 and 39 percent.

Minimization of the losses

In the past year, the eight casinos with an additional concession for the online gambling played through their digital game offered to cushion a large part of their financial losses. According to the agreed media reports, the respective Online casinos together around 187 million Swiss francs (CHF) sales can generate. The top dog in the local gaming industry – the Grand Casino Luzern Group – was able to unite CHF 70 million alone. The market leader is represented on the Internet with the mycasino.ch platform.

Grand Casino Lucerne Group. The Grand Casino Lucerne is a gigantic company complex based in Central Switzerland. The company not only has the position as the market leader in the area of online gambling, but also works in many other economic sectors. The group also operates in leisure, entertainment, catering and congress industry.

With a total of four online casinos, Swiss Casinos was also able to collect the Corona decline in income in the past financial year. Due to the digital range of games, around CHF 56 million was flushed into the company’s coffers. According to tax and other deductions, Swiss Casinos was even able to To generate net profit of CHF 1.5 million.

Only the Stadtcasino Baden Group was able to top this value. With the platforms jackpots.ch and casino7777.ch the gambling group can take CHF 46 millionThe bottom line of which was CHF 3.9 million as a net profit.

Corona als Chance

The Casinó di Lugano in the American-speaking canton of Ticino received the additional concession for the online gambling only in April 2020, so that a significant financial blessing could not be achieved through the presence on the Internet. Nevertheless, the gaming company is was not idle during the past crisis year And perceived the difficult conditions as an opportunity.

Since the casino could not receive any visitors for many months, the forced break was used for it, to make improvements and optimizations in the background. Not only did the launch of the online casinos swiss4win.ch have been successful, but the entrance areas and internal premises of the casino were also renovated, the work processes were improved and various services were created.

Despite fulfillment despite losses. According to business figures, the Casinó di Lugano took around 43 percent less in 2020 than in 2019. Nevertheless, the company continued to do its social taxes and paid the workforce in full.