Inside Switzerland’s iGaming market: regulated, stable, profitable?
Switzerland’s online gambling market is one of Europe’s most controlled environments, shaped by cautious regulation, strict compliance expectations, and a model that links online gaming closely to the country’s land-based casino sector.
That design choice has consequences. It raises the bar for anyone trying to enter the market, increases the cost of compliance, and constrains the kind of loud promotional playbooks that have become normal elsewhere. But it also creates a regulated environment where trust, legitimacy and long-term sustainability are the core competitive battleground.
A recent GameOn roundtable for SiGMA News brought together three perspectives that sit at different pressure points of that system: an operator viewpoint from Deborah Conte Santoro of Swiss Casinos, a payments lens from Andrea McGeachin of Neosurf, and a technology and optimisation perspective from Thomas Kolbabek of Golden Whale. Taken together, their comments sketch a market that has chosen incrementalism and, so far, appears comfortable with the trade-off.
Conte Santoro argues the newest licensing cycle has “effectively stabilised” the landscape, reinforcing “regulatory legitimacy and compliance standards” and “incrementally improving public trust, especially through player protection”. She frames Switzerland’s approach as “conservative by design”, not least because “the country deliberately avoided liberalisation” and mostly renewed existing concessions. The bigger shift, she suggests, is the steady pull of online players away from offshore sites, as “revenue has gradually shifted from illegal platforms to regulated ones”.
From the payments side, McGeachin points to the practical impact of a market where players transact “exclusively with verified, regulated operators”: “payment flows are easier to oversee and audit”, and that consistency, she says, “plays an important role in building public confidence”. Kolbabek, while cautioning that it is “still too early to assess the full impact in a meaningful, data-backed way”, ties the long-term health of the market to channelisation, making regulated offers strong enough that “unlicensed alternatives simply can’t compete”.
A second thread runs through all three contributions: Switzerland’s consumers expect restraint, clarity and security, and they reward it with loyalty. “Swiss players place less emphasis on novelty and aggressive incentives,” Conte Santoro says, and respond better to products that feel “official and state-sanctioned”, “technically reliable” and “discreet”.
- Andrea McGeachin, Global CEO at Neosurf (pictured on the right)
- Deborah Conte Santoro, Managing Director ReelLink at Swiss Casinos (pictured in the center)
- Thomas Kolbabek, CTO and Co-Founder at Golden Whale (pictured on the left)
What impact do you believe the introduction of the new casino licenses has had on the Swiss market? Has this had any impact on public trust within the gambling landscape?
SANTORO: Rather than transforming the Swiss gambling market, the new casino licenses have effectively stabilised it by strengthening regulatory legitimacy and compliance standards and incrementally improving public trust, especially through player protection.
The country deliberately avoided liberalisation in the sense of opening the market to many new entrants, and most licenses were renewals for existing operators, with only limited reallocations. This has preserved operational continuity and employment, avoided sudden market saturation and ensured that predictable tax and levy revenues continue for the Confederation and cantons.
The most meaningful market impact continues to be in online gambling, which is tightly linked to land-based casinos. Licensed Swiss online casinos have consolidated market share against offshore operators, and revenue has gradually shifted from illegal platforms to regulated ones.
All things considered, it’s an approach that has been conservative by design – but in terms of public confidence and long-term sustainability, that conservatism appears to have paid off.
MCGEACHIN: From a payments perspective, a clearly-defined and tightly-controlled licensing framework supports a more transparent and accountable ecosystem.
When players are transacting exclusively with verified, regulated operators, payment flows are easier to oversee and audit. Over time, that consistency plays an important role in building public confidence.
For payment partners like Neosurf, this environment allows trusted payment methods to be embedded directly into regulated platforms, reinforcing responsible play and consumer protection without adding complexity for operators.
KOLBABEK: It’s still too early to assess the full impact in a meaningful, data-backed way. That said, expanding the legal offering is generally a positive step. It increases consumer choice and can improve channelling into regulated environments, which is essential for long-term market health and public trust.
Given the cross-border nature of AML risks, payments and player protection, how important is cooperation with other jurisdictions for Switzerland’s gambling ecosystem?
SANTORO: The new concessions reinforced this model by making online compliance and technical controls a central licensing criterion.
The licensing process raised expectations around AML and player protection systems, cybersecurity and data handling, as well as social responsibility and harm-prevention measures.
This has increased operators’ costs, but also raised overall market quality and professionalism.
In terms of public perception, the new licenses have reinforced the idea that gambling is state-controlled and socially supervised, increased confidence that licensed operators are safer than offshore alternatives and strengthened the legitimacy of online gambling as a regulated activity. The ESBK (the Swiss Federal Gaming Board) has, in turn, benefited from being seen as a firm and technically competent regulator.
In Switzerland, public trust in gambling is less about market openness and more about effective self-exclusion enforcement, clear separation between legal and illegal operators and transparent allocation of gambling revenues to public goods. That said, trust isn’t uniform, and with greater cooperation with other European frameworks in areas like AML, payments and player protection, and more visible enforcement against illegal sites, the stronger it will ultimately become in future.
MCGEACHIN: It’s absolutely critical. Financial crime and digital fraud do not respect borders, so effective oversight depends on cooperation between jurisdictions.
For Neosurf, closer alignment across European AML and payments frameworks enables unified monitoring and shared intelligence models. If a transaction is flagged in one market, that insight can be reflected across the wider network, strengthening protection for both operators and players.
KOLBABEK: Cross-border cooperation is extremely important. The exchange of know-how, tools, typologies and information is central to effective countermeasures. Criminal networks, fraud rings and illegal operators act globally, so regulators and licensed businesses need to collaborate at a similar level. This is especially relevant in payments and AML, where risk patterns don’t respect borders, and in player protection, where best practices continue to evolve rapidly.
How do consumer expectations in Switzerland differ from those in other regulated markets? And how does this shape your strategy within the market?
SANTORO: Consumer expectations in Switzerland are shaped by a high-trust, low-tolerance regulatory culture. Compared with other regulated gambling markets, Swiss players place less emphasis on novelty and aggressive incentives, and far more on fairness, security, and institutional legitimacy.
In general, Swiss players want gambling to feel official and state-sanctioned, technically reliable, discreet and free from aggressive sales pressure. This comes as a stark contrast to expectations in markets like Spain and the UK, where players are more accustomed to promotional intensity and frequent product innovation, so obviously, operators must adapt their strategies accordingly.
One obvious example is that self-exclusion, deposit limits and identity verification are accepted as normal in Switzerland and not considered a friction, whereas in many other markets these measures are perceived as intrusive or optional. Another is that large and complex bonus schemes undermine trust, because for Swiss players, loyalty is built through reliability rather than rewards.
As a result, all successful strategies must incorporate Swiss licensing and ESBK (the Swiss Federal Gaming Board) oversight, visible player protection tools, and clean, sober communication. Any marketing that feels too loud or entertainment-driven runs the risk of backfiring, and this applies to aspects of product design too.
Of course, this leads to slower growth when compared to more liberalised markets, but once that confidence has been established, Swiss customers are loyal and very committed to their brands.
MCGEACHIN: Swiss consumers place a particularly high value on trust, precision and data privacy. Speed matters, but not at the expense of clarity or security.
Our strategy reflects those priorities. Every transaction is designed to be clear, secure and visibly compliant. Whether funds are deposited via retail or digital cash channels, players know they are operating within a safeguarded and auditable framework.
In Switzerland, success isn’t about offering more choice, it’s about offering the right options, delivered consistently and responsibly.
KOLBABEK: Switzerland benefits from a strong foundation of trust in its regulated environment. Players generally expect stability, transparency and reliability, which naturally shapes strategy towards long-term value rather than short-term wins. At Golden Whale, we support this by building systems that promote sustainable player behaviour, while still delivering an excellent user experience. Ultimately, responsible engagement and highly-optimised customer journeys need to go hand-in-hand, ideally resulting in what we like to call “the best UX on the planet.”
Looking ahead, what do you believe the Swiss iGaming market will look like over the next five years? And what steps do you think the market needs to take to continue prospering?
SANTORO: The iGaming industry is constantly evolving, and a lot can happen in the space of five years, but I expect the fundamentals of the Swiss market to largely remain the same. Even as the market matures, best practice for operators will remain responsibility-anchored, with player protection and trust retention continuing to be the core competitive factors. Where I do expect to see some innovation is in how operators improve their digital and mobile experiences, because over time these will increasingly dominate the channel mix. As a result, steps will need to be taken by the regulator to ensure that mobile products are given the freedom to flourish, while still ensuring that they deliver the responsible gambling safeguards necessary for long-term sustainability.
MCGEACHIN: We expect Switzerland to continue positioning itself as one of Europe’s most stable and reputation‑driven regulated iGaming markets.
Long‑term sustainability will be shaped by:
- Ongoing modernisation of payment infrastructure, particularly at the intersection of cash and digital.
- Stronger collaboration and data sharing between payment providers, operators and compliance teams.
- An innovation mindset where consumer protection informs product design rather than constraining it.
For Neosurf, Switzerland represents a benchmark market, demonstrating how trust, user experience and responsible payments can coexist and set a standard for others to follow.
KOLBABEK: We may see some movement in the number of licensed operators, alongside shifts in positioning and execution quality. Beyond that, a key priority will be increasing channelling rates by making regulated offers so strong that unlicensed alternatives simply can’t compete. Trust, efficiency and quality of execution will all be decisive factors in ensuring the long-term success of the Swiss market.
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