Is a Big Casino Footprint in a Tiny Principality a Good or a Bad Bet?

Liechtenstein, where gambling had largely been illegal until 2010, now has more casinos per capita than Macau or Monaco. Some critics worry that it’s more than the principality can handle.

VADUZ, Liechtenstein — It was a drab Tuesday evening in an industrial neighborhood in northern Liechtenstein, but that did not deter a steady stream of drivers in cars bearing an array of international plates. Their destination: a squat gray building with an understated blue and red neon sign reading, “Grand Casino.” Ronald Grimm, a 59-year-old Austrian who wears a silver ring in his left ear and lives in Switzerland, says he visits the Grand Casino, one of a string of mostly nondescript gambling joints along Liechtenstein’s borders, whenever he can to play the slots.