It's been a year since I've joined this forum and I was somewhat reluctant in opening an "Ask me Anything" thread due to all the spam going on in the gambling section, but several users requested it, and I've also enabled self-moderation to battle the spammers. Hopefully it will be a fun exercise where we can all together make this section more interesting.

So, I've been in this industry for a while now, I'm part of a team that operates several brands, and have also worked within other operations, including MGA, UKGC and Curacao licensed brands. I would say that I know the ins and outs of most of the operations out there, including some high end competitors, and I would love to share any insights or answer any burning questions that someone outside of the industry has. I'm not the owner of the casino though, so I'll not be able to answer questions targeted towards that area of the business, but I can try to shed light on anything else.

I can cover almost anything, game selections, bonus methods, VIP players, troubles with the law, license structure. You can ask anything, and if the questions are really interesting, I'll include them in this post as an edit.

Regarding the self-moderation aspect of the thread, I will not abuse it. I don't mind entering a proper argument, maybe you'll learn something new, maybe I will. But if I smell an AI-written post, or a random one just to boost your campaign numbers, I will delete it. I already created more than enough cool threads that got eaten up by spammers, I don't want this one to be another of those.

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: How much money do you need to open a Crypto or Fiat online casino?
The minimum recommended amount for an experienced team starting an online venture would be in-between 3.8 Mil and 5 Mil, all depending on the team and their salaries. Most new casino operations get profitable anywhere between 14 to 18 months, so you would need enough money to survive that period. However, that's for people who have previous experience with managing a casino operation and are bringing in a lot of contacts from the industry already. If you're starting from scratch, with a junior team, you will need to set more money aside for consultants and failed campaigns.

Q: Can I open an online casino by myself?
I wouldn't recommend opening a casino by yourself or even with a team of junior people, the market is so competitive that you will either be eaten up by the competition, or by scammers. It's a tough job with a lot of stress. If you would like to enter the industry, and do something by yourself, you can always open an affiliate site with Wordpress and work your way up.

Q: How many people do work at an online casino?
Smaller operations usually have up to 15 people, medium operations up to 500, larger can go up to 5000, it all depends on how many services they do in-house. If you're outsourcing almost every aspect of your business, then you can work with a smaller team, but if you have your own customer support or your own casino platform, then we're talking about several hundred people for just one department.

Q: How does a regular online casino work?
Most smaller to medium operations work in a so called puzzle-style operation, that means that you, as the operator, are made up of several pieces that are completely separate from your business, with which you either partner up or you pay them for the services they offer.

#1. The Casino Platform itself, the key element. Same how there are platforms like Wordpress and Kentico, there are also finished solutions for your Casino, usually built either in Angular, React or, sometimes, in Next.JS. Those are companies that are known within the industry and usually manage everything for you, but for a fee of course.
#2. Game Providers, the most important aspect of a casino, there are over 100 different gaming providers on the market who take care of the games, their quality and security. So instead of making your own games, you just plug them into your casino.
#3. Payment Providers, you usually do not process payments in-house, and it's also not recommended since it's a lot of money in question, so you rather let a professional manage that. This is why you get payment providers like Mastercard, PayPal, GooglePay, ApplePay and similar services.
#4. Affiliate Platform Provider, instead of having your own system for onboarding affiliates, you usually outsource this as well.
#5. Customer Support Providers, again, instead of hiring 30 employees of your own, you just find a company that can manage this aspect for you, usually it has to be an experienced or iGaming dedicated company because there's a lot of lingo going on. However, this is also one of the reasons why some smaller operations have bad customer support = because it's outsourced. [/li][/list]


So, basically, the smaller you are, the more you're outsourcing, but the more percentage of your winnings goes to the providers. The bigger you are, the more stuff you're doing in-house.

Q: How much money does an online casino earn?

There are tons of casinos that are publicly trading, so their earnings are available to the public. For an example, you can Google Betsson AB Quarter Report, and you'll see that they are ranging around 50 Million per quarter, but they are also a huge operation that eats a lot of money by itself. Smaller operations usually earn anywhere between 250.000 to a million per month, but since it's such a volatile market, you have to have a fat war chest for hard times.