Gambling in Switzerland: online great, offline bad?

A good year ago, an article published on GambleJoe reported that Swiss casinos are increasingly focusing on the online trend. Now that the Swiss Casino Association has published its business figures for the past year a few days ago, it is clear: the online trend is already unstoppable. Land-based casinos are increasingly losing out and are having to accept declining sales.

Online casinos in Switzerland with double-digit growth

The ten licensed online casinos in Switzerland alone were able to generate gross gaming revenue of CHF 286 million in 2023. Compared to the previous year, this corresponds to an impressive increase of 14.3%.

The land-based casinos in Switzerland achieved gross gaming revenue of around CHF 623 million in the same period. However, the comparison with the previous year shows that a slight decline in sales of 1.1% had to be absorbed.

There are currently around 250 gaming tables with roulette, blackjack and poker in the 21 land-based casinos in Switzerland. In addition, there are more than 4,500 slot machines in the local casinos, which account for over 80% of gross gaming revenue. In total, more than 4.5 million guests from home and abroad visited the land-based casinos in the Swiss Confederation in 2023.

The offline casinos still generate more than twice as much gross gaming revenue as the online casinos in the country. However, it must be taken into account that only the ten licensed online casinos are included in this analysis. It must be expected that significantly higher gross gaming revenue will be generated on the “black market”, so that the bottom line is that sales will probably be higher online than offline as early as 2023. An article published in March dealt with the poor player protection in the online offering of Casino Baden and the sanctions that come with it.

It is therefore obvious that the online business will have a lasting impact on the gambling industry in Switzerland. Just a few weeks ago we reported that a Swiss man had to pay a fine for playing on his own slot machines.

Conclusion

Of course, land-based casinos are by no means threatened with extinction. Last year alone, over 4.5 million guests visited the 21 land-based casinos in Switzerland. However, the current gross gaming revenue shows that the online trend is not stopping at the gambling sector. Consequently, it can be assumed that sales in online casinos in Switzerland will increase significantly again this year.