SWITZERLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Simon Planzer and Florian Furger, PLANZER LAW
The Swiss Gaming Landscape in 2025 The Swiss land-based and online gaming market in 2025 has been shaped by the recent re-licensing of the casino sector. The federal government decided in November 2023 upon the allocation of 20-year land- based casino licences, while simultaneously granting online licences. The five-year cool-down period has also ended for numerous international B2Cs. Many international gaming operators pulled out of the Swiss market with the entry into effect of the Gaming Act in January 2019 and enforcement actions from July of the same year. These operators would no longer be barred from coop- eration with Swiss casinos if they kept their Switzer- land-facing offerings closed down. Accordingly, after 2024, or five years after shutting down their offerings, international investors and operators are permitted to seek renewed opportunities in the Swiss market. The post-licensing casino sector In November 2023, the federal government allocat- ed 22 new casino licences to successful applicants. These 22 licences are valid as of January 2025 and will run, in principle, for 20 years. They authorise the licensees to offer land-based casino games (including poker) in approved premises. Twelve of them were also granted the right to offer online games. While the licensing window for the 20-year land-based licences closed in October 2022, casinos can also apply at any point to be granted the right to offer online games. It can be expected that there will be an additional 23rd casino venue in a few years. The federal government could not allocate a licence in one of the 23 geograph- ically defined casino zones. No suitable application had been submitted for the “Schaffhausen” zone. The government will likely allocate the additional licence after another casino landscape report by the regulator and the evaluation of the Gaming Act that is currently being conducted by the Federal Department of Jus- tice and Police. As of 12 October 2025, the casino in Schaffhausen permanently closed its operations. It had received a licence extension from the federal government in June 2024 allowing it to maintain operations temporarily until the casino in Winterthur, owned by the same casi-
no group was up and running. The Winterthur casino is expected to begin operations in mid-December 2025 or early 2026. In addition, the Casino St. Moritz AG announced the closure of its operations in April 2025. Subsequently, the Federal Gaming Board (ESBK) initiated the pro- cess to revoke the concession. With Casino St. Moritz AG unable to find a suitable buyer, its licence was officially revoked on 20 August 2025. It remains to be seen what will happen to this second casino zone that is now vacant. Most of the above-mentioned newly granted 22 licences are held by the shareholders that already held them at the (previously) 21 casinos. This is not the case at the casinos in the two newly proposed casino zones (“Lausanne” at Lac Geneva and “Win- terthur” north-east of Zurich), or at Casino Locarno. The latter’s majority shareholder has changed from the ACE/Novomatic casino group to the Baden casino group. Earlier, in 2021 and 2022, the Gaming 1 group had already taken over the majority shareholder role at the casinos in Davos and Crans-Montana. The new casino in Prilly (zone Lausanne) will only open in the course of 2026 due to construction delays. Licensing details The licensing window produced 29 licence applica- tions for 23 terrestrial casino licences, as well as 12 simultaneous applications for online licence exten- sions. Among the 29 licence applications, there was at least one application for each of the 23 geographi- cally predefined casino zones. The Swiss Casinos group, headquartered in Zurich, gave up one of its past casino locations (“Schaffhaus- en”) and successfully applied for the licence in the newly created “Winterthur” casino zone. The application for the casino licence in Schaffhausen, which was backed by new investors, did not meet the formal application requirements and, as a result, there was no applicant for that casino zone. In all other pre- existing casino zones, the incumbent licence holders submitted licence applications to continue their casi- no businesses in their respective geographical zones, although partly in new casino venues, such as Davos.
519 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook