With black stilettos, a blond bob and a slash of red lipstick, Milanese accountant Maria Teresa De Gasperi is dressed for a night out in Switzerland. Her visits to Lugano's casino have grown less frequent as her gambling budget declined.
"A lot, lot less," she said, referring to her spending while sitting on a sofa in the casino's brightly lit foyer.
The Swiss town of Lugano has been home to a casino for the past century and about 80 per cent of the gamblers are Italian, according to its management. The town, south of the Alps beside a sparkling blue lake and palm trees, is about an hour from Italy's financial hub of Milan by car or train, and at the frontier of Europe's prosperous north.
The gaming industry's malaise stands in contrast to much of the rest of the Swiss economy, which has managed to recover from the contraction it suffered in 2009. In the first quarter of 2013, Swiss growth outpaced Germany's, the most resilient economy of the 17-member currency area.
Gross revenue for Switzerland's 21 casinos was down 24 per cent last year compared with 2008, when the financial crisis erupted with the collapse of New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., official statistics show. The decline occurred even as new casinos opened, including one in Zurich.
Revenue slide
Swiss casinos suffered an eight per cent drop in revenue in 2012 to 757 million francs ($800 million), according to the Federation of Swiss Casinos, with not a single one able to maintain revenue at the previous year's level. The decline suffered by casinos in French- and German-speaking cantons was generally less pronounced last year, the federation's data show.
At the Admiral casino in Mendrisio, just 5 minutes from the Italian border, gaming revenue fell 12 per cent to 64 million francs last year. Lugano's casino suffered a 21 per cent decline, the biggest of any in Switzerland, to 54 million francs.
"Last year, people were spending less," said Luca Antonini, manager of the Lugano betting house as he sat in his Spartan office down a hallway from three floors of blinking lights, bars, slot machines and tables of blackjack and roulette. "Now we're beginning to see fewer guests, too."
Household debt
Italy has traditionally been a nation of savers, whose penchant for putting money aside has helped fund the government's debt, the euro's second-biggest relative to gross domestic product. Household debt in Italy stood at 45 per cent, compared with a euro-area average of 64 per cent, according to data from the European Central Bank. As unemployment rises to more than 12 per cent, Italians are increasingly eating into their nest eggs to shield themselves from poverty.
In the past decade, Italian laws forbidding gambling have been relaxed. Slot machines and video lottery machines are now authorised, in what the government says is a drive to make the once-clandestine industry more transparent and easier to regulate.
Critics of the decision say the rule change is bad for society. Every 12th person who plays machines will become hooked, Suedtirol Online quoted the region's consumer association as saying last year.
Maurizio Cimarelli, a spokesman for the Italian state's gaming agency AAMS, said the liberalisation meant people simply switched to legal gaming. "All this has done is bring to light numbers previously hidden," Cimarelli said in an email.
"A lot, lot less," she said, referring to her spending while sitting on a sofa in the casino's brightly lit foyer.
The Swiss town of Lugano has been home to a casino for the past century and about 80 per cent of the gamblers are Italian, according to its management. The town, south of the Alps beside a sparkling blue lake and palm trees, is about an hour from Italy's financial hub of Milan by car or train, and at the frontier of Europe's prosperous north.
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A liberalisation of the predominantly Catholic country's once-strict laws has helped gambling gain prominence in Italy, where the economy is mired in its longest slump in more than 20 years. That change, combined with the strength of the Swiss franc, is making times tough for casinos in Switzerland's Italian-speaking canton of Ticino. The franc appreciated by about 25 per cent against the euro during the past five years. It rose 0.2 per cent to 1.2365 per euro at 11:33 am in Zurich.
The gaming industry's malaise stands in contrast to much of the rest of the Swiss economy, which has managed to recover from the contraction it suffered in 2009. In the first quarter of 2013, Swiss growth outpaced Germany's, the most resilient economy of the 17-member currency area.
Gross revenue for Switzerland's 21 casinos was down 24 per cent last year compared with 2008, when the financial crisis erupted with the collapse of New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., official statistics show. The decline occurred even as new casinos opened, including one in Zurich.
Revenue slide
Swiss casinos suffered an eight per cent drop in revenue in 2012 to 757 million francs ($800 million), according to the Federation of Swiss Casinos, with not a single one able to maintain revenue at the previous year's level. The decline suffered by casinos in French- and German-speaking cantons was generally less pronounced last year, the federation's data show.
At the Admiral casino in Mendrisio, just 5 minutes from the Italian border, gaming revenue fell 12 per cent to 64 million francs last year. Lugano's casino suffered a 21 per cent decline, the biggest of any in Switzerland, to 54 million francs.
"Last year, people were spending less," said Luca Antonini, manager of the Lugano betting house as he sat in his Spartan office down a hallway from three floors of blinking lights, bars, slot machines and tables of blackjack and roulette. "Now we're beginning to see fewer guests, too."
Household debt
Italy has traditionally been a nation of savers, whose penchant for putting money aside has helped fund the government's debt, the euro's second-biggest relative to gross domestic product. Household debt in Italy stood at 45 per cent, compared with a euro-area average of 64 per cent, according to data from the European Central Bank. As unemployment rises to more than 12 per cent, Italians are increasingly eating into their nest eggs to shield themselves from poverty.
In the past decade, Italian laws forbidding gambling have been relaxed. Slot machines and video lottery machines are now authorised, in what the government says is a drive to make the once-clandestine industry more transparent and easier to regulate.
Critics of the decision say the rule change is bad for society. Every 12th person who plays machines will become hooked, Suedtirol Online quoted the region's consumer association as saying last year.
Maurizio Cimarelli, a spokesman for the Italian state's gaming agency AAMS, said the liberalisation meant people simply switched to legal gaming. "All this has done is bring to light numbers previously hidden," Cimarelli said in an email.