Switzerland’s regulated online gambling market generated revenue of €23.5m in its first partial year of operations.
This week, Switzerland’s federal gaming board (ESBK) released its 2019 annual report, which showed the four locally licensed online casinos that launched operations in 2019 generated combined revenue of €23.5m following the market’s official launch last July.
The ESBK didn’t break out specific sums for each online casino but the Stadtcasino Baden group previously announced that its two sites (Jackpots.ch and Casino777.ch) reported combined revenue of CHF7.6m (€7.15m) last year while Grand Casino Luzern’s Mycasino.ch brought in CHF9m (€8.47m).
The only other casino to launch an online gambling site last year was the Swiss Casinos group’s Pfäffikon-Zürichsee, so subtracting the other sites’ contributions leaves us with around €7.9m in unaccounted online revenue. Which would make the Luzern casino’s Mycasino.ch (second to launch after Jackpots.ch) the market’s initial king of the hill.
A fifth local online casino – Casino Interlaken’s StarVegas.ch – didn’t make its arrival on the scene until this February. In April, Swiss authorities gave Casino Lugano and Casino du Lac Meyrin the thumbs-up for online activity, although neither site has yet to launch.
Swiss authorities did their best to give their local online casinos a fighting chance in 2019 through blocking of internationally licensed online gambling sites by both ESBK and the Swiss Lottery & Betting Board (Comlot). The ESBK also opened 108 criminal cases for illegal gambling, although, in terms of combating those international rogues, the regulator was mum about how many (if any) of these cases amounted to anything more than the digital equivalent of yelling ‘get off my lawn.’
Land-based casino revenue hit CHF742.5m in 2019, 5.5% higher than 2018’s result and the second consecutive year of annual growth. ESBK credited at least some of this growth to the closure of Italy’s Casino du Campione in mid-2018. Slots revenue improved 8% to CHF613.2m while table games fell nearly 5% to CHF129.3m.
Comlot released its own annual report a few days ago, which showed retail lottery revenue rising 4.7% to CHF541.3m, instant win games adding CHF291m and online lotteries contributing a further CHF76m. Sports betting revenue slipped nearly 8% year-on-year to CHF58m while race betting added another CHF32.3m.
