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Casinos in Switzerland Start to Feel the Pressure of the Looming Euro Crisis

By Keila Brown | 16th January 2012 | Online Casino News

The current problems going on with the Euro throughout Europe’s Eurozone is starting to wreak havoc on casinos throughout Switzerland, especially in Ticino, which is near the Switzerland – Italy border and has the largest concentration of casinos found anywhere in Europe. While Ticino is no Las Vegas, it does have a number of casinos, include the largest in Europe.

The federal government of Switzerland mandates that the casinos pay a percentage of all profits to the state. And while they were still able to provide some money to the federal government, it is not as much as they have been able to. Between the newly created smoking ban in casinos, coupled with the current economic crisis and the introduction of video lotteries throughout Italy, the casinos have lost a minimum of 40 percent of their gross gaming revenues.

The situation is made even more difficult because employees as well as suppliers are paid in Swiss currency, Francs, while most people play the games in Euros, which has lost approximately 25 percent of their total value since the onset of 2010. While Italian players still use the same amount of Euros, the Euro crisis means much fewer Swiss Francs.

The casino will not cut out services to their clients, but will have to reorganize internally a bit without compromising quality. The casino does not want people to stop coming. They are also hoping that soon the economy will be in an upswing and the Euro crisis will dissipate.

One final measure to aid the casinos will be to try to renegotiate the profit revenues given to the federal government. Currently, casinos pay close to 50 percent to the government. However, the Swiss government rebuffed the request to change the amount paid.

There are no exact predictions for the future if the Euro crisis continues other than that the Ticino casinos will have start reducing investments and costs if the exchange rate does not start going in their favor.