You are definitely right, this days, personally value partnerships more than licenses, it takes a casino with good reputation and seriousness in their business to partner with other big and reputable companies and individuals with significance..
We have many of such casinos on this forum with stake being one I am so sure of, there are others but won't mention names since I am not so sure which and which aside stake.
Thats not far from the truth apparently but, it would be very wrong to compare a projects one step to another projects one thousand steps. The other have got years of patronage, positive advertisements from a humble beginning on there side while the other is just testing the shores and gaining more insight as well as, trying to offer more.
"Rome wasn't built in a single day".
Building a good reputation take year of hard work and dedication from a team, most of the big casinos that we see around the forum with good reputation have put in years of hard work a d resources to attain the level they are today. And any casino that is ready to build a good reputation will start with a clean beginning although some started with one form of challenge or another but their approach to solving those challenges and continuing their business is what makes one different from the other.
Just as we have a casino that is a household name with the good reputation we also have others that are popular with years of practice but their reputation is still shady and bad, so it viz-visa.