Swiss Casino Interlaken recorded a further decline in sales

Last Friday, the CKI Group-the Congress Center Kursaal Interlaken AG-published a press release that showed that the subsidiary Casino Interlaken had to record a drop in sales last year. Not only the income from the terrestrial sector, but also the online sector is affected. With this renewed decline in sales, the group is now planning “future -oriented measures”.

Sales decline for land -based and online casino

In 2021, the Casino Interlaken generated CHF 19.1 million – the equivalent of EUR 18.5 million. Of these, only 28 percent, i.e. CHF 5.4 million, came from the terrestrial sector, which is a total of 5.2 million in euros. Compared to the year 2020, this represents a decline in sales of 4.3 percent. The continuously existing ones Corona measures And especially the 108 days on which casinos generally had to close. The Swiss state has provided financial aid through pandemic in hardship cases, which still achieved the casino of CHF 720,000 – the equivalent of almost 697,000 euros.

For the Board of Directors – Dr. Claude Thomann – The result is “gratifying”, but still no reason to rest on: “However, the pleasing results that we owe extensive support services from third parties, but do not leave us rest. We have to stay tuned and continue our homework for the future. ”

However, the decline in sales does not only have consequences for the group. The common good is also affected. Due to the sunken income, the Casino 2021 was only able to pay CHF 6.1 million, i.e. 5.9 million euros. Of these, CHF 900,000 – in about 870,000 $ – came from both the canton and the municipality of Interlaken. For comparison to 2021, the 2020 casino taxes were CHF 6.6 million – a little less than 6.4 million euros.

But not only the land-based casino was able to record fewer income than in 2020, but also the online casino. The virtual offer of the Casino Interlaken, which can be reached under “Starvegas.ch”, achieved a gross game yield of CHF 13.7 million in 2021 – a sum of not quite 13.3 million euros. This represents a sales decline of 3.2 percent compared to the previous year.

Disadvantage through later opening

On the ranking list with the most sales of the Swiss Online-Casinos Starvegas is in fifth place. The opening date in February 2020 can be seen in connection with this placement: Starvegas is the fifth open online casino in Switzerland. On the other hand, the online offers from Spielbanken Baden, Lucerne, Pfäffikon and Davos have been available a year earlier-2019. This time represents a decisive lead in which these casinos customers could recruit customers who are still showing themselves. For example, Stadtcasino Baden AG has been the first online casino at “Jackpots.ch” since July 2019.

The Casino Interlaken, for example, wanted to compensate for the temporal disadvantage with a lot of advertising. In addition, difficult circumstances would have come from the operating costs for payment providers as well as play and platform providers. CAO of Casino Interlaken AG-Oliver Grimm-explained that the goal was to be established in the leading online casinos. The terrestrial sector should also be strengthened. Above all, it is crucial to maintain the new concession so that the company could stay in business by 2045.

In order for these goals to be achieved, however, the group has to decide some “future -oriented measures”. This includes organizing events and congresses and also promoting local tourism in the Interlaken region. Internal changes have also been given in the CKI group. The Kursaal and Casino have been separated to maintain more efficient management and more financial transparency. Despite “this challenging time”, the group was tune positively to the future.