Gespa 2025 Review Exposes Retail Underage Betting Vulnerabilities in Swiss Sports Betting Channels

Switzerland’s gambling regulator has concluded that player-protection measures employed by lottery operators Swisslos and Loterie Romande function more effectively online than through land-based outlets. Gespa’s evaluation under the Federal Act on Money Gaming identified sports betting as the highest-risk category and revealed that mystery-shopping exercises allowed nearly half of 200 underage test customers to place bets at retail locations. Self-service terminals proved less restrictive than staff-assisted transactions. The findings were reported by Focus Gaming News.

Online channels accounted for 24 per cent of the operators’ combined gross gaming revenue in 2025, with land-based sales delivering the remaining 76 per cent. The regulator stressed that digital systems enable tighter implementation and real-time assessment of safeguards.

Retail Control Shortfalls

Gespa highlighted significant weaknesses at physical points of sale. Operators are now assessing identity-scanning technology for self-service terminals, additional staff training, repeated mystery-shopping exercises, and enhanced age-verification tools. Sports betting generated the highest average player losses and the largest share of customers exceeding CHF2,000 in monthly net losses. The demographic skews younger and predominantly male, a group associated with elevated harm potential. Cash-out features may further encourage impulsive play.

Mandatory limits include monthly loss caps of CHF2,000 and CHF900 for certain products plus a CHF10,000 deposit ceiling across categories. In 2025, only 0.23 per cent of Swisslos players subject to the CHF2,000 cap reached it at least once; the equivalent figure for Loterie Romande was 1 per cent. Temporary self-exclusion rates stood at 0.57 per cent for Swisslos online customers and 0.6 per cent for Loterie Romande. Automated monitoring flagged 0.47 per cent of Swisslos active users and 0.12 per cent of Loterie Romande’s. Swisslos issued 76 gambling bans during the year, up from 39 in 2024; Loterie Romande issued 65, up from 56.

Forward Regulatory and Operational Priorities

Swisslos and Loterie Romande generated combined net profit of CHF814m in 2025, down 4.7 per cent year-on-year. Swisslos posted CHF562m and Loterie Romande CHF252m. Swisslos reduced the maximum monthly loss limit for Sporttip customers aged 18-21 to CHF1,000 from March 2026 and added deposit warnings plus blocking software recommendations. Loterie Romande replaced its Playscan tool with a Sustainable Interaction system that produces a seven-tier risk rating.

Swisslos will participate in a 2026-2027 research project examining excluded-player behaviour and ban effectiveness. A separate nationwide gambling behaviour study by the Federal Office of Statistics is scheduled for 2026, with results due in 2027. The persistent gap between online and retail controls requires targeted technology deployment at physical outlets to reduce youth access and align safeguards across both channels.