Sports Betting & Online Casino Website

There are many factors to consider when looking to build your own gambling website. Even if you meet a fantastic IT partner who can support you through your journey, there are still many things to consider and require your attention and due diligence.

How much does it cost to build a gambling website?

The minimum starting price is $100,000 upwards of up to 1 million dollars. This cost depends on how many sports categories, games, features, functions, and complexity you plan to implement. Consider adding $5,000 to 10,000 for each sport/game and feature you wish to add on for a rough estimate.

Minimum total development time ranges between 6 to 12 months. This depends on the number of games, the number of features, as well as the complexity of the features along with which operating system your platform will be available in.

There are also additional dependencies on your end that could either hasten or slow the development period. Such things could be contracting with third-party API providers(live data feed and payment gateways) or continuously adding features during the development phase.

Our suggestion

Expect to spend anywhere between 2~3 months of architecture with your IT partner. Also, have clarity on what you want before even starting discussions with your IT partner.

How do I set up my own gambling website

Licenses

Many countries in the world provide legal licenses for online gambling. Depending on the lenience, markets, and languages you plan to support can determine the general region of where to register your website.

Many countries in Europe(it’s also the biggest market in the world) offer licenses with the U.K. being the most lenient.

The next largest online gambling market is the Asia-Pacific region. Most Asian countries have banned such practices and only allow state-run lotteries and sports betting. New Zealand and Australia are the best countries to look into within this region.

The third-largest market in the world is the U.S. Several states allow for online gambling sometimes restricting certain games such as only horse racing, sports, or casino games. Iowa, Delaware, and New Jersey allow the most categories.

Honorary mentions include Morocco(extremely open) for the Middle East and Columbia(extremely open) for South America. The most popular online gambling countries are Antigua, Antilles-West Indies, Costa Rica, Curacao, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Malta, and the Netherlands to host your server.

Global Online Gambling Industry segmentation, in Billions.

Live Feed Data

You will need to choose a sports/casino data service provider. You can ask your IT partner for help, but in the end, you will need to sign the contract with the service provider. A simple Google search will give you a list of companies to choose from. This process will help you concretely decide which sports/casino games you wish to provide on your platform as you compare the API data service providing companies.

Our suggestion

Involve your IT partner in the process of reviewing the test code provided by these companies. Your IT partner will let you know which languages they are comfortable developing in. In fact, before hiring the IT partner, determine which data service provider you will go with. That company will then provide you options of which language they can provide their code to you. This will be one of the main deal-breakers when looking for your IT partner. It would be a total waste of time if you finally decide upon an IT partner after many meetings, only to find out that they are incapable of using the provided code.

Technology Stack

Although your IT partner will recommend certain languages, you also need to be familiar with which framework and languages will be the best for your business. Unfortunately, some IT partners will not discuss this with their non-technical clients and will opt to go with whatever developer is available in-house. More often than not, we have seen clients asking to do a complete redo on a software project because the languages and tech stack the previous IT partner had used was not up to date and did not consider the long term.

Our suggestion

Have a discussion with your IT partner on which tech stack they plan to use. Do your due diligence and be up to date with the latest tech and languages available. Asking questions such as ‘What’s the best language for |speed, security, easy maintenance, etc|?’ will ensure you will have a meaningful discussion and understand their capabilities.

Technical Support

In almost all cases, you will continue to work with your IT partner that built your platform for you. This will come in the form of technical support, maintenance, upgrades, and updates.

Make it clear with your IT partner from the beginning whether you will continue working with them after the completion of the project or move tech support in-house. Whichever the decision, make sure to have access to their code at all times.

Note, it is very difficult to change your dev team. The main reason is that each team and each individual developer have different ways and methods to write and manage their code.

Our suggestion

If you plan to move technical support and maintenance in-house, then hire in-house developers to build your platform from the start. Else, expect to go in a type of marriage with your IT partner; until the death of the business do we part.

Clientele List

As mentioned above, this is your most valuable asset. Your IT partner will have access to this list, so you will need to trust your IT partner. If you can’t then you must tread very carefully.

We have partnered with numerous clients who came to us to develop another platform because they could no longer trust their current dev team.

Be honest with your thoughts and feelings with your IT partner. More often than not, they will be willing to openly express theirs as well. Keep in mind that your IT partner knows exactly how much you are earning to the last cent.

Our Suggestion

Be open to discussing sharing a percentage of total profits earned with your IT partner. This will help the IT partner be content and help you sleep better at night.

Benefits of building from scratch and not using a solution provider

• Full Control – You will have full control over the entire process of the development.
• Complete Ownership – Self-explanatory.
• Uniqueness – Your platform will be different from all other platforms which can help it stand out among all the other platforms that use a solution provider.
• Become your own solution provider – You can become your own solution provider and generate additional stable monthly income(market standards usually for providing a software solution can go around for a one-time signing fee: 5 figures, tech setup fee: 5 figures, monthly subscription fee: 5 figures, and a percentage on all your earnings).

Ask your IT partner from the very beginning if they would be able to build a platform that can also be sold as a SaaS. This could add one more extremely lucrative revenue stream for your online casino. 

This could also be used as one of the filters for deciding on an IT partner because building a platform and building a SaaS are two completely different concepts that require different levels of expertise.