Swiss Federal Gaming Board (ESBK) published its annual report for the 2020 financial year on Friday. The report most basically characterizes the online gambling business growth. It helped to partially cover the land casinos losses which appeared because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The online-casino assortment in Switzerland grows all the time. Nine online platforms have already received licenses. But this brings upon the necessity to increase the requirements for players’ security.

One of the main legislation aims is to establish the criteria for identification of the persons at risk. For instance,in order to set a computer-controlled monitoring, casinos which also run online casinos will have to use the data of their users, such as deposits and withdrawals, losses, the period and number of visits.

Tracking tools which will provide the players an easy access to information about their bets, losses and winnings are also envisaged. In addition, ESBK considers it reasonable to set bets and losses limits on the players’ end.

Huge losses for land casinos

Coronavirus pandemics also left an imprint on casinos. During the lockdown the sales fell. It also influences the casino taxes in favour of the compensation office AHV, pension system in Switzerland.

The gross income of gamling in land casinos in 2020 constituted 452 millions Swiss franc (415 millions euro). Last year it still constituted 742 millions Swiss franc (681 millions euro). It is a reduction of approximately 39%.

170.4 million Swiss franc (156.45 millions euro) came to the pension system in Switzerland in 2020. In 2019 less than 305 million Swiss franc (280 million euro) was withdrawn to Switzerland pension system, which shows a 41.1% reduction.

But the online business is positively developing. The total income from seven online casinos would be 186.8 million Swiss franc (155 million euro). 78 million Swiss franc (72 million euro) from it were sent to the State treasury. So they had the possibility to recover some of the losses.