New online gambling laws for Switzerland

The Swiss Parliament this week past new gambling laws encompassing the treatment of offline and online games.

After 3 years of consultation and debate, the Geldspielgesetz, or Money Gaming Act (‘the Act’) has now become law and is set to  take effect from January 2018.

The Act replaces outdated laws passed in 1923 and 1998; both obviously inadequate to address the question of online gambling,  and this ambiguity has to date been interpreted by international operators as a green light to accept Swiss players. That light will probably turn red next year. For most anyway.

The Act isn’t completely prohibitory in nature and does allow for online casino and sports betting sites, but only local operators with a land-based presence will be able to obtain a license. The only way international operators (or software providers) can get their foot in the door will be to partner up with a local license holders.

We’ve seen these types of partnerships evolve in the closed US state markets…Betfair, Ezugi and the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City for example.

Still, it’s not exactly consistent with EU principles of freedom of service provision.

That’s the contention of groups within Switzerland opposed to the Act (the Green Liberal Party, Swiss People’s Party, The Free Democratic Party) who are busing petitioning signatures that could a force a referendum to decide whether the Act can come into effect. For this to happen 50,000 signatures within 100 days will be needed.

The Act will also require Swiss ISPs to block locals from accessing non-licensed international operators. This type of provision is nothing new. What is new, is the undertaking from the government to compensate the ISPs for additional expenses incurred in doing so.