Costs/price of starting a white label NetEnt Casino & Sportsbook

 We give a full cost/price breakdown of starting a white label NetEnt casino with Sportsbook, Mobile casino and Mobile Sportsbook.

We have received quite a number of emails on this topic so I will shed some light on the costs/price of starting a white label Net Entertainment (NetEnt) Casino.

I will use Guts Casino as an example as it is the benchmark of NetEnt Casino Excellence.

Guts Casino launched in 2013 and I will show you how much it cost to start a casino with a Guts Casino type Blueprint.

What have emerged of late are White Label Solution providers and a casino like Guts runs on a White Label Platform.

White Label Providers

These days people wanting to start a NetEnt Casino don’t have to go directly and negotiate a software deal with Net Entertainment itself.

Ofcourse you can do this if you please but what have emerged are White Label Gaming Providers who make the process easier for you.

Definition of ‘White Label Product’
A product manufactured by one company that is packaged and sold by other companies under varying brand names. The end product appears as though it is being made by the marketer, when in reality it is being created by the manufacturing company.
In this case, the manufacturer can concentrate on making the product or service and focus on cost savings, rather than worrying about marketing, which will be handled by the companies that will sell the product.

The primary business of Net Entertainment is to produce fantastic slots so rather than bother themselves with marketing and selling the slots and software package, they let other companies sell their products for a percentage of the sale.

That being said, one of the most popular White Label Gaming Providers is EVERYMATRIX. (There are others like TAIN which are equally as good and provide the same type of solution.)
Guts Casino also runs on the EVERYMATRIX platform.
What Everymatrix does is it packages everything you need to start a casino and makes it available for you to pick and choose, that is the software (NetEnt, Microgaming, IGT, BetSoft, Sheriff Games, Play’n Go, OMI Gaming, Cozy, NYX Interactive etc), Payment Processing, Mobile platform, Affiliate platform, Sports book etc.
So what you end up paying for is a complete online casino solution in one place rather than going and sourcing everything you need from individual suppliers.
Everymatrix can have your casino to you in 4 weeks.
You just pick and choose what you want and everything works seamlessly right out of the box.

In the case of starting a NetEnt casino like Guts, an EveryMatrix package would cost you €250,000.
The products and services you will be paying for are:

• OddsMatrix powered Sportsbook
• The gaming platform GamMatrix which manages all payments processing, currencies, languages and general backend administration.
• Casino Engine with 200 games from NetEnt and Play’n Go( adding additional software is available at added costs)
• A Mobile360 Sportsbook and Casino solution
• The affiliate management solution PartnerMatrix to manage your marketing.

What else is there to consider?

Licencing

Your  casino will need to be licenced in a jurisdiction that allows online gambling where you can host your servers and if you like, operate from.

This is called a Remote Gambling Licence.

Popular juridictions are Curacao, LGA Malta and Alderney.

EveryMatrix has an Operators License for all these jurisdictions so it will be up to you to apply for a Remote Gaming Licence.

In the case of setting up a casino like Guts, you will need a Class 1 Remote Gambling Licence for operating an online casino and a Class 2  Remote Gambling licence for operating a sportsbook.

For the Class 1 Casino Remote Gambling license you will need to pay €7000 a month + an annual licence fee of €1,500.

For the Class 2 Sports Book Remote Gambling License, you will need to pay 0.5% of the monthly turnover capped at €466,000 per year.

Staff to run your casino

The key staff will be:

1. Your Customer Care Support Staff x 12

Your Customer Care Staff are the most important people in the business because they are the first point of contact with your customers.

No matter how wonderful your games or website is, customer support will make the difference whether a player stays or goes elsewhere when he/she has a problem.

That being said, a staff compliment of about 12 is a decent number to start your online casino.

Average pay for a Customer Care Consultant is €1,500 per month in Malta.

2. Affiliate Manager

Your affiliate manager will be in charge of getting players in.

Cost of an Affiliate Manager is €2,500 per month.

3. A Marketing/Retention Manager

The Marketing/Retention Manager will be in charge of keeping the players playing by setting up bonus offers, free spins campaigns, tournaments etc

Cost of a Marketing/Retention Manager €2,500

4. Technical Team

You will need a 3 man/woman tech team to handle any tech problems that arise.

A Senior IT Guy will cost you €4,000 a month.

2 Mid Level IT Guys will cost you €2,500 a month.

5. Accounts Team

You will need a 3 man/woman team to deal with all your accounting and financial obligations.

A Senior Accountant will cost you €4,500 a month.

2 Mid Level Accountants will cost you €3,000 a month each

Marketing Budget

The marketing budget varies depending on how hard you want to get your brand out there.

You can spend as little as €10,000 or as much as €100,000 in your first year.

Most new up and coming online casinos usually have a 15 second TV Ad out by the 3rd month of going live.

A late night 15 second TV advert in Norway can cost you about €15,000-€20,000 per appearance.

So marketing budget is entirely dependent on what your penetration strategy is like and varies from one operator to the next.

Money in Reserves

You need to have a stash of cash in atleast NetEller, Skrill and your Bank Account ready to pay winning players.

Paying players promptly means they’ll most definitely come back to play again.

A casino like Guts pays players in 2 hours regardless of whatever withdrawal method they have used to cash out.

You will need atleast €100,000 in reserve for your first year of operation.

€40,000 in NetEller, €40,000 in Skrill and €60,000 in your Bank account.

There are lots of horror stories of start-up online casino who have been hit with MASSIVE wins in the first week of launching and have been left battered and bruised because they had no money in reserves.

Total itemised BreakDown of the cost of starting a NetEnt Casino

(First Year estimated costs)

EveryMatrix Solution(NetEnt & PlaynGo Games, SportsBook + Mobile) = €250,000

Remote Gambling Licence Class 1 & 2 (LGA Malta) = €141,500 + (0.5% of Sportsbook Turnover per month)

Staff:

Customer Care Consultants x 12= €216,000

Affiliate Manager=€30,000

Marketing/Retention Manager=€30,000

Tech Team x 3= €108,000

Accounts Team x3=€126,000

Money in Reserves = €100,000

Total Cost of a White Label Net Entertainment (NetEnt) Casino [Year 1 estimate]

= €1,001,000 + (0.5% Sportsbook Revenue per month) + (Marketing Costs)

So you will need approximately €1 million to set up your own NetEnt Casino.