Swiss casinos overturn revenue fall

After eight years of bad revenue results, casinos from Switzerland reported a small increase in their numbers.

Switzerland.- The Swiss Federation of Casinos (SFC) revealed that the 21 licensed gambling venues in the country reported a small increase in revenues in 2016 as they totaled US$711 million, a 1.2 percent higher than the 2015 results.

The last time that casinos in Switzerland had experienced good results was in 2007, and ever since casino owners asked for new regulations to set new conditions in a market where online operators were trying to spread their businesses. Back in January, Swiss land-based casinos had requested the government to block the domains (IP) of authorised international iGaming platforms. However, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Swiss National Council decided to remove this condition from the regulation on the online gaming industry. The Committee objected the blocking request, but enabled the Federal Gaming Commission to control the international gaming sector.

According to the latest figures, last year was slightly below the 2004 numbers, first ever year that recorded results as it was also the year that the industry was legalised. Moreover, the revenue was also behind 2007’s peak of US$1 billion.

Whilst the international online gambling operators ban is still on track, casino operators remain hopeful that local unautorised operators will also be punished sometime during the remaining of this year.