Stadtcasino Baden Group Appoints New Igaming Leaders

    Stadtcasino Baden AG Unveils Who Will Be at the Helm of Its Two Online Casinos

    Article by : Helen Feb 15, 2021

    The Swiss casino operator behind Grand Casino Baden, Casino Davos, and their online casinos, jackpots.ch, and casino777.ch, respectively, has announced who will take the helm of the company’s two online gaming operations.

    Brian Christner, an IT specialist from the United States with more than a decade of experience in the online casino business, will take charge of jackpots.ch. As for casino777.ch, Robert Kocher, a digital and marketing specialist from Hamburg (Germany) who joined the industry in 1998, has been appointed the head of the Davos online casino.

    Brian Christner got his online casino industry experience thanks to working in Las Vegas for four years and later spending seven years in Amsterdam. Since moving to Switzerland in 2011, Christner has been engaged in the cloud computing industry. His most recent venture before the Stadtcasino Baden Group appointment was co-founding and running a B2B consulting company that helped businesses set up their cloud solutions.

    Robert Kocher, in his turn, has been a part of the online industry for more than two decades, since 1998. He has mostly taken up the roles of managing director and startup co-founder while working on numerous projects of varying complexity. Stadtcasino Baden Group is familiar with his work firsthand: Kocher was engaged in developing and launching Gauselmann Group’s first online casino. (Gauselmann Group is one of Stadtcasino Baden’s shareholders.)

    As for the other two management roles mentioned in the press release, Christian Stegemann has been named the Group’s new Chief Financial Officer, while Dr. Alexandra Körner is now the company’s Head of Legal & Compliance. Before joining Stadtcasino, Stegemann gained his experience at the Fossil Group, where he served as CFO for the EMEA region. Dr. Körner, in her turn, worked as a lawyer specializing in casino and online gambling legislation in a Zurich law firm.

    The two appointments are hardly fresh news: Stegemann started working in the new position in May 2020, while Dr. Körner’s appointment came in June 2020. The two positions were created as a result of restructuring efforts meant to ensure the company “keeps up with the market developments since 2019 and in particular with the expansion of activities in the area of online business”.

    I am convinced that with the new crew I have found a coherent management team to take our ‘House of Entertainment’ into the future respectively. I’m looking forward to the future with his new management team.

    Michael Böni, Stadtcasino Baden Group’s Chief Executive Officer

    Stadtcasino Baden Group’s jackpots.ch was the first online casino to launch in Switzerland after the Gambling Act entered into force in January 2019 – it went live on July 5, 2019, shortly after the Grand Casino Baden was granted an online gambling license. Casino Davos’ online counterpart, casino777.ch, followed suit soon, launching on September 9 same year.

    Under the Swiss law passed in 2018, online gambling platforms can be operated only by Swiss-based casinos and lotteries. Offshore gambling is outlawed, with the authorities blocking online casinos based in other countries. Stadtcasino Baden Group is owned by the municipality of Baden and 2,200 shareholders, with the municipality holding a controlling stake in the company (51%).