For over the past two decades, online casinos have become one of the popular and beneficial businesses in the world. Entrepreneurs saw this coming and took advantage of the growing popularity of these online businesses. It is not a secret for many of us that the gambling business brings lots of money, though do we have enough information about the expenses part? If so, how much does it cost to open a casino? These are the right questions that you need to focus on if you have an idea of starting a gambling website or getting into this business as a stakeholder.
Let’s keep it simple; if we consider that there are thousands of gambling rooms, bookmakers, and cyber cafes around every city, it will tell us that the gambling business is financially beneficial. However, we need to pay attention to the fact that online gambling, as you can see from the name of the term, is happening in the online platform. For those of you who have no idea about this case, we need to state that online platforms have their own rules. The competition is higher, the risk is higher, and most importantly, players have many more choices when it comes to online casinos rather than land-based ones. By considering all the necessary factors, we will try to give you an insight into how much it costs to open an online casino. Let’s start with the first passage, which is about the licensing process and its cost.
How much does it cost to open a casino? : Licensing
Licensing is considered one of the largest expenses when it comes to starting an online casino business. What is this, and how it operates? The licensing process is not that easy. It can take some time for independent owners to get a gambling license. First of all, you need to write an application and claim your license from countries like:
- Malta
- Gibraltar
- Isle of Man
to get it slightly quicker. You need to pay the local taxes and annual fees to keep your license legitimate. Do not think about running an online casino without a license. Keep in mind that, the drawbacks of those actions are far more than the cost-benefit part.
As we already mentioned, it is more complicated for independent entrepreneurs to get a gambling license. If you have enough financial resources, the best-case scenario is acquiring a license from online casino software providers inside a package that includes licensed casino games and many more tools that can help you to utilize future workload. Besides that, running an online casino platform with the license comes up with several benefits. What are those?
Not so obvious benefits of starting an online casino with legitimate license
The first advantage of running an online casino platform with a license is the availability of high-quality products. Most of the time, reputable online casino software or casino game development companies do not want to cooperate with independent casino owners who do not have a gambling license. The reason for that is those franchisees do not want to ruin their reputation and allow those scammer or semi-legal casino entities to take advantage of their intellectual products. Those companies value their reputations greatly, thus avoid the partners who do not have a license.
For example, let’s take the Novomatic and imagine a case where you started an online casino and want to get their online casino software. When you reach out to the company, they will ask you for a legitimate license and background information. As you started not so long ago, you will not be able to convince them about your clear background, and if they saw that you do not own an online casino license, they will not respond positively. That is why official registration and licensing are very important matters that cannot be ignored.
Players’ Perspective Toward Gambling Sites
The second reason why you need to have a legitimate license is about players’ perspective towards you. The players want to enjoy their favorite online casino games in a safe environment. They trust the gambling sites that pay taxes. The players think that those are legit casinos. Besides, there is little to no chance that they will defraud them and take their money. It is a kind of guarantee for players, and they value this factor more than anything. In addition to that, you need to consider the fact which is about high rollers in the gambling world. Those types of players will only deposit in licensed online casinos. Because, they wager more than ten or twenty thousand dollars.
Drawback: Cost
The only drawback of the licensing process is the cost. To somehow calculate how much does it cost to online casino, you need to have information about this matter. In countries like Curacao, Adderley, Gibraltar, and Malta, the license will cost you around 15 to 20 thousand dollars. That is the main reason why those countries are popular destinations for many entrepreneurs. Though if you focus more on the quality and prestige rather than the expenses factor, you can get a license from countries like Switzerland, Germany, or the United Kingdom. It will roughly cost you around 40 thousand dollars minimum.
How Much Does it cost to open a casino Website?
As your primary business tool for online casinos, the website is very important. The financial success of your business in the online gambling world largely depends on the quality of the website and casino content. There are certain steps that you need to go through before starting a gambling website. For example, the stages are:
- Developing an idea about the general concept
- Thinking about the design
- Coding, programming and front end web development
- Integrating the gaming software to your website
- Making the interface user friendly
- SEO and overall digital marketing campaigns
- Promotions
It is a matter of time, but as we list out the possible stages that you need to go through, you can see that it is not the workload that one person can handle. You need to have a creative and working team that can help you through various stages of website development. External contractors are the best choice when it comes to this mess. You can find a company that can handle all these by themselves and provides you with the end result. It will cost you around 2 to 5 thousand dollars, depending on the idea that you have about your future business model.
How much does it cost to open a casino with the addition of gaming software?
The online casino software is very important for your gambling business. Without that, it is virtually impossible to lead a successful platform. The programs in the software can handle the three most important parts that you will need after starting a gambling website. What are those? The first part is a gaming platform. The software allows casino owners to operate fully and have administrative control over everything that is related to their platform. The second important addition that software brings is the slot machines. You can buy online slot games separately or as a whole.
Though it is recommended to choose a software that offers both classic and modern versions of these amazing games, the third important aspect that you can utilize with gambling software is payment solutions. Our recommendation is to install as many choices as possible when it comes to payment systems. Because it will help you to generate more profit as users want to see a diverse platform. For gaming software, you need to pay at least $100K from average providers. For getting gambling software from franchises like Microgaming, Playtech, Novomatic, the cost will be around $300-500K and more. So, if you are wondering how much does it cost to open a casino with effective software solutions, my answer would be around at least 1 million dollars, according to Business First Online, depending on your wishes.
