Online Casino Switzerland in 2026: Who Can Legally Operate, How Big the Market Is, and What the Money Gaming Act Review Could Change

Only Swiss land-based casinos holding a federal concession may legally offer online casino games in Switzerland. The Money Gaming Act, in force since 2019, reserved the online market for those domestic concession holders and ordered internet providers to block everyone else. If you are a foreign operator or supplier, you cannot get your own online licence. Your legal route runs through a concession holder.

Online Casino Switzerland Rules: Who Can Legally Operate in 2026?

The Swiss model is closed by design. There is no standalone online casino licence. A casino that already holds a land-based concession can apply to extend it to online play, and the online brand then runs under that same concession. The regulatory link between the physical venue and the website is permanent. If the land-based concession goes, the online offer goes with it.

At the end of 2025, the market had 20 land-based casinos. Nine of them operated online casino brands, and Casino Locarno is set to become the tenth. Those nine or ten companies are the full set of legal online casino operators in the country. Players can only gamble legally with them, and you can only reach Swiss players legally through them.

For foreign operators, the options are narrow:

• Partner with a concession holder. Some Swiss online brands draw on international operating know-how, but the concession holder stays the licensed entity and carries the regulatory responsibility.
• Supply a concession holder. Platform, game content, payments, KYC and responsible gambling tooling all come from B2B vendors. That is where most international companies actually take part in the Swiss market.
• Stay out. Serving Swiss players without a concession puts your domain on the blacklist covered below.

For suppliers, the buyer is the concession holder, and the concession holder answers to the Swiss Federal Gaming Board (ESBK). Your product will be judged against what the ESBK expects from its licensees, not against what a Malta or Curaçao client would accept. If the terminology differs across jurisdictions you work in, our list of casino and regulatory terms operators need in 2026 covers concession, GGR and related terms.

How Big Is the Swiss Online Casino Market in 2025 Figures?

Swiss online casinos generated CHF313.6 million in gross gaming revenue in 2025, up 1.2%. Over the same period, the total casino market fell 2.1% to CHF878.5 million, down from CHF898 million the year before. All figures here are 2025 data from the ESBK annual report published in June 2026.

“Wurden Sie vom Casino gesperrt oder möchten Sie selbst eine Spielsperre beantragen?”

Eidgenössische Spielbankenkommission

Land-based revenue dropped 3.9% to CHF564.9 million, so online now accounts for just over a third of Swiss casino GGR. The online channel is the only part of the casino market that grew, though growth of 1.2% is closer to flat than to expansion.

Revenue is concentrated among a few operators:

The top three account for roughly two-thirds of online GGR between them. Lucerne still leads despite a decline, and Pfäffikon is closing the gap. Casino taxes totalled CHF263.1 million, falling in line with GGR.

For a supplier, this market looks unusual. It has a very small number of possible buyers and stable but slow revenue. Each operator competes against offshore sites that ignore Swiss rules. You win business by helping a concession holder take share back from the illegal market, not by riding market growth. Product quality, payment conversion and player experience carry more weight than in a fast-growing, open market.

How Does Switzerland Block Unlicensed Online Casinos?

Swiss internet providers must use DNS filtering to block every domain on an official blacklist, and that list reached nearly 3,000 sites by early 2026. When a Swiss user tries to load a listed domain, the provider’s DNS resolver refuses to return it, and the user is typically redirected to a notice page.

Two regulators maintain the list, split by product. The ESBK lists unauthorized online casino sites. Gespa, the intercantonal gambling supervisory authority, lists unauthorized lottery and sports betting sites. Both publish updates, and the combined count is what reached the nearly 3,000 mark.

Enforcement increased in 2025. The ESBK reported 580 domain blocks and 105 new investigations over the year, and described a strong rise in illegal online gambling. More blocks did not mean less offshore play. The regulator’s own reading is that the illegal market grew anyway.

In February 2026, regulators added 376 domains in one batch. That update went past offshore casinos and sportsbooks and reached affiliate websites as well. Affiliates that send Swiss traffic to unlicensed brands are now treated as part of the illegal offer, not as neutral publishers.

Legal challenges have not worked. Switzerland’s highest courts have repeatedly upheld DNS blocking as lawful, so you should treat the blacklist as a settled part of the regime, not a measure likely to be struck down.

Practical takeaways:

• Affiliates: Promoting unlicensed brands to Swiss users can get your own domain listed. Swiss-facing content should point only to the concession holders’ brands.
• Suppliers: If you serve both Swiss concession holders and offshore operators that accept Swiss players, expect questions during due diligence. Geo-restricting Switzerland for clients without a concession is the cleaner position.
• Operators outside the market: DNS blocking is easy for a determined user to bypass, but being listed hurts your brand with any future Swiss partner.

How Is Swiss Online Sports Betting Regulated Differently From Online Casinos?

Casino games fall under the federal ESBK. Lotteries and sports betting sit with the intercantonal regulator Gespa and are offered by Swisslos and Loterie Romande. These are two separate regimes with different regulators, different licensees and different rulebooks.

The betting and lottery side is far larger by turnover. Gespa reported that lottery and sports betting turnover fell 2.4% to CHF3.87 billion in 2025, and gross player yield declined 3.7% to CHF1.203 billion. So, like the casino market, it shrank slightly in 2025.

A casino concession does not cover a sportsbook. A Swiss casino cannot add sports betting to its online brand under its ESBK concession, because large-scale sports betting is reserved for the two lottery companies. The reverse also applies: the lottery companies do not run online casinos.

This split matters when you scope a platform. A build for a Swiss concession holder is casino-only: games, wallet, player account management, payments and player protection, with no sportsbook module. If your product is a combined casino and sportsbook platform, you would be selling two separate deals to two separate buyer groups, each with its own procurement process. If you are planning betting products for markets where the two can be combined, our sportsbook platform features checklist sets out what that build involves.

What Could the Money Gaming Act Review Change for Swiss Operators and Suppliers?

The Federal Department of Justice and Police is formally evaluating the 2019 Money Gaming Act. Its report, expected later in 2026, will decide whether the concession-only online model and DNS blocking stay as they are. Until it is published, nobody outside the process knows the result, and you should plan for more than one outcome.

The plausible directions:

• No structural change. The review confirms the concession-extension model and the blacklist, perhaps with procedural adjustments.
• Tighter enforcement. The ESBK has reported rising illegal play despite more blocks, which supports measures that go beyond DNS filtering, building on the move against affiliates.
• Changes to market access. The review could look at whether tying online play to land-based concessions still serves the law’s goals, which would open questions about who may operate online.

None of these is certain. What is certain is that Swiss concession holders will keep buying technology under close regulatory scrutiny, whatever the report says.

If you supply them, prepare in three areas:

• Swiss-market compliance features. Identity verification at registration, cross-operator exclusion checks, and reporting that matches what the concession holder must give the ESBK. Build these as configurable rules, not hard-coded logic, so a change in law becomes a configuration update rather than a rebuild.
• Player protection tooling. Deposit and loss limits, session controls, and early detection of problem play with an audit trail. Regulators facing a growing illegal market tend to judge the licensed offer by how well it protects players.
• Game certification checks. Confirm that every title and RNG in your catalog meets the testing standards Swiss concession holders require, and keep the documentation ready for the operator’s compliance team.

Concession holders run formal vendor reviews, and they will tighten them if the law changes. Our guide on how to pick a B2B iGaming vendor covers the buyer side of that process. For the criteria behind it, see what operators must assess in iGaming providers. Read both from the concession holder’s side of the table before the report comes out.