At last, after a long losing streak, the tables are turning. For three years of soaring unemployment, of closed shopfronts, deserted beaches, and soup kitchens, the future looked bleak. Now the golden sun sparkles on the turquoise waters of Lake Lugano again, the trees don’t shiver, but sway dreamily in the early summer’s breeze. Once again everything seems possible. Once again, the people of Campione d’Italia are gambling for high stakes.
Campione d’Italia is a little Italian town located at Swiss Lake Lugano. With stunning mountain views and clear waters, cypresses and palm trees, and dolce fa niente, the Italian enclave is indeed a piece of Italy in the middle of Switzerland. The name goes back to medieval landlord, Campione, who left his estates to a monastery in Milan. A Papal State that remained Italian when the Helvetic Protestants took their oath, Campione was for decades spoilt for success.
The rise of Campione started in 1917, during WWI, when with the sole purpose of spying on foreign diplomats, a gambling licence was granted to Campione to open a casino. After the war, the Casino di Campione was closed again, and the town fell back into provincial slumber, but in the 1930s, Mussolini, recognizing its strategic importance in the middle of neutral Switzerland, not only added “d’Italia” to the former name “Campione” in an imperialistic gesture, but he reopened the Casino. Tax-exempted, all profits were to go to “Campione d’Italia”.
The Casino soon became a hot spot of international intelligence. The US Office of Strategic Services – the precursor of the CIA – opened an office there, and, with diplomats of all sides rubbing shoulders at Roulette and Black Jack, the little town saw a fair share of secret service intrigue and 007. After the war, when Italy lay shattered in ruins and ashes, Campione d’Italia kept prospering.
The Casino provided jobs to a quarter of the 2000 locals, and a steady inflow of foreign currency. With the roulette’s wheel turning until 6am, nightlife was vibrant, with concerts and music festivals all year round. Restaurants, hotels, gyms, and boat clubs and upscale boutiques were flourishing as international High Society and VIP’s promenaded along the lido, the lakefront.
Campione had the best of both worlds. With Italian verve, it outshone luxurious, but staid Lugano on the other side of the lake. Cappuccino was ordered in Italian, but paid in with Swiss Franken. Telephone numbers were Swiss, as were car plates, and insurance policies. From rubbish collection to schools, municipal services were reliably provided by Switzerland, and paid for by the Casino. With gambling prohibited across the border, fortune smiled on Campione. Money kept rolling in and Champagne bottles kept popping, real estate prices soared.
But the rich didn’t flock to Campione simply for the fun. With a moderate income tax, no inheritance tax at all, nor gift tax or VAT Campione d’Italia was a tax haven.
Then Campione started pushing its luck.
In 2007, Casino was rebuilt. At the cost of more than 100 million Euro, Swiss star architect Mario Botta designed a block-shaped 36,000 square metre colossus that offered 56 tables and 1,000 slot machines to 3,100 gamblers at a time. Sitting at the lakefront, the ochre monster dwarfs the old town up the steep slope behind it. Instead of Italian charm or Swiss understatement, the Casino di Campione d’Italia oozes Sowjet megalomania.
The redesigning came at a bad time. The same year, new Italian laws allowed for gambling machines in bars and café, stealing Campione its unique selling point. Then Switzerland unexpectedly permitted gambling and soon three casinos opened near-by, one of them in elegant Lugano on the other side of the lake. Then, unforeseen online gambling became a thing. And really no one in Campione had thought about the possibility of the Swiss Franken gaining in strength against the Euro. Relying on Swiss services, Campione started amassing enormous debts.
So the unlucky streak began. When the Casino failed to come up with the maintenance costs of its high-priced municipality, one after the other, the city offices, the nursery schools closed down. The mayor resigned, and clerks were left waiting for months for their pay checks in offices they had no fuel to heat.
When finally, in 2018, the Casino declared bankruptcy and closed for good, the boutiques first lowered their prices, then the scrollbars. The gyms shut their doors, then the bars. Then the restaurants closed, and the soup kitchens opened.
But then things got worse. In 2000, after long legal battles, Campione was forced to join the European Union, an unwanted “Brexit al contrario.” Italy finally revoked Campione’s old tax exemptions. From one day to the other, people of Campione had to report to Como in Lombardy, crossing EU borders to get new car plates, telephone numbers, even to collect their amazon parcels, which were now delivered by Italian postal services. They realized with horror that no one in Campione had a tobacco license. For each package of cigarettes, they had to cross borders into Switzerland now.
Just when it looked as if couldn’t get any worse for Campione, the Corona virus spread over Europe, holding Lombardy in a tight grip. Cross border traffic between Switzerland and Italy came to a halt, bus service was suspended. The only way to get to Como was now to walk to the Italian border, and to quarantine.
Rien ne va plus.
“S-O-S. Campione is dead.” A banner the local Lion’s club had mounted on the lido read. People now had to rely on meagre Italian unemployment cheques, others went without pay. Debts to Switzerland counted 175 Million Franks. Neighbouring Swiss communities helped their suddenly impoverished neighbours with warm food and clothes. But while some felt desperate, it was a moment of catharsis to others.
“If you eat too much caviar, you will get sick,” the starred chef Baptiste Fournier said in an interview with the BBC. He saw a new beginning, a chance to re-organize the economic system, become independent from a single employer, or from another country. There is, after all, much more to Campione d’Italia than Baccara and Black Jack.
There are palm trees softly rocking in the breeze, there is the sweet scent of the ancient cypress trees in the ear. Red kites are whistling as they cross the cerulean sky, and flocks of black-headed gulls come sailing in to rest on the calm, turquoise waters. A group of old men are playing cards by the lake front. One of them, turned away from the group, is singing the old Italian song Volare, flying, in the delicate falsetto of old age. He looks across the lake, to Paradiso, Lugano’s cosmopolitan lakefront, the elegant lido against a backdrop of high mountains.
Then, luck turned.
This June, a court in Milan approved a refinance plan. By the end of the year the Casino is scheduled to reopen, people are re-employed, restaurants re-opened. The sun shines on Campione again, and again Campione d’Italia is counting on Fortuna. The ball is rolling.