Gambling is a constantly growing industry. More and more online casinos are being found over time. If you want to become a successful, widely recognized operator, there are certain steps you need to take to get a gambling license and to perform business successfully. Creating a working financial model is one of them. It will include constructive strategies for achieving business goals. A business plan should be written step-by-step with an accurate description of the company’s aims for at least one year.
Market analysis as a start
There are multiple factors that influence the market tendencies. Political events, economic changes, and other global shifts can impact consumer behaviours and the gambling industry, respectively. Nevertheless, the gaming sector keeps growing, and the number of competitive online casinos keeps increasing over time.
The jurisdictions have different laws and regulations that should be compared before making the right choice. Besides, this choice will define the GEOs you’ll focus on. So, analyzing the numbers according to the market conditions is the key. You must know exactly how much money is required to fund the business extension and how long it will take to make a casino profitable. This is essential both for your own and the investors’ awareness.
Step-by-step approach
After the market monitoring, it is important to make an analysis that will be helpful for the further steps of the process. The next important elements are:
- Executive summary. This part of the online casino business plan includes a summary of the whole document — the brief information about your company, its funds, goals, and future expectations.
- Company introduction. This section must contain your business description, such as the mission, the history of creation, core principles, etc.
- Customer analysis. This business plan part covers the information about your target group (including age, gender, interests, income, and geography).
- Marketing plan. Includes the information about your pricing policy, product, and promotional channels and strategies (SEO, SEM, etc.).
- Operations strategy. This element must describe your daily operations, their goals, structure, responsible staff, etc.
- Financial plan. Basically, the most important part of the document. This plan must contain an overview of your company’s funds, necessary investments, expected growth rate, and net income.
- Key team members. A short description of your management staff: their qualifications, experience, responsibilities, and advantages for a business.
- Appendix. This is a part of an online casino business plan that can cover any extra information you suppose to be worth mentioning. It could be resumes, articles, product details, full financial statements, etc.
Keep in mind that these are common elements of the business plan. Realizing the customers’ needs and your strong competitive features, together with an investment plan, will bring you to success. Our experts can help you to create tailor-made solutions especially for your company.
Customer engagement: core metrics
Alongside the target group analysis for marketing campaigns, there are exact financial criteria you need to consider. Let’s single out some of them:
- CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost). This parameter is required to estimate the approximate cost of bringing a customer to your platform.
- LTV (Lifetime Value). The LTV helps you to understand the correlation between investments and the revenue a company generates from the entire engagement of a player.
- Retention rates. This metric shows the amount of time a customer usually spends on your gambling platform and allows you to compare the cost of the lead with the revenue it brings.
The more accurate the calculations are, the greater the trust of investors is. Besides, it will help you to understand how big expenses will realistically be.
Online casino business models
Let us proceed to various business models available in the gambling market. There are the ones successfully proven by years of work and newly emerging ones. To estimate both your revenue and expenses expectations, picking the suitable model is a must.
Casino models for real money
This is a conservative casino business model, which has existed for a long time. Live dealer games, slots, and traditional table games are included in this category. Customers make deposits and withdrawals in real money, which is why it is crucial to ensure that the audience has diverse payment options and the company operates under a license in compliance with AML and KYC regulations.
Subscription-based models
The subscription-based model is popular because it evokes loyalty from customers. As soon as the players are able to subscribe for months or years, they are more likely to get back and keep placing deposits. Subscription gives certain benefits to the players, like an ad-free gambling experience and bonuses/enhanced features. So the gambling company generates profit steadily. High-class support and an opportunity to try the subscription for free help to involve customers quickly.
Hybrid casino business models
Hybrid models are the ones that combine several types in one. They usually include real money experiences and free-to-play activities. To provide this model on your website, analyze the popular choices of various target groups to select the suitable ones.
Cryptocurrency-focused models
Casinos working with virtual currencies belong to this type of online casino business model. Coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum are the most popular choices. Crypto society grows with time, and the customers who value privacy keep choosing crypto casinos for making deposits. Make sure you have a diverse choice of coins you can accept.
Affiliate marketing business models
Affiliates bring customers to your gambling platform through various sources. They involve bloggers, reviews, and tailor-made marketing campaigns, creating possibilities for a broader players’ reach. Affiliates have to get licensed as well, and they receive a commission of the revenue generated by players attracted to the website through their channels.
Social casino models
Social casinos are created to unite people into groups for playing. They may attract friends, family members, neighbours, etc. Real money is not deposited or withdrawn. Nevertheless, such casinos often serve as a source of customers for real casinos through a cross-promotion experience.
Free models (Freemium)
The profit is not generated directly in such models. Customers buy special features through built-in purchases in the apps, ads, and digital currencies. If you want to attract a new audience through this type of casino, it is recommended to focus on partnerships and advertisements.
Types of online casino platforms
Depending on the casino business model you choose and the amount of control you want to get, there are three types of organizing online casino platforms to pick from. They are the following:
| Operational type | Description |
| White Label casinos | This type of platform is “all-inclusive” in terms of the provider’s service. If you are a startup and want a fast start, this option may be good for you, because it includes back office services, license acquisition, hosting, etc. Risks are low if you choose White Label solutions. |
| Turnkey platforms | This solution is a nice choice for those who are willing to build a brand identity without taking full control of launching and maintaining a business. You receive a platform, built-in payment system, front-end instruments, and API integration. Nevertheless, licensing is on you. |
| Custom-made casino | If you want everything to be exclusively made for your business, choose this option, but keep in mind that it is the most expensive one. Custom-made platforms are suitable for experienced operators, big companies, and niche online casinos. Cooperation with experts will help you to create tailor-made solutions like back office tools, interface, and all other features. |
On each stage of the business operation, the best solution may differ. To choose the platform type in compliance with your business needs, contact our experts.
Future trends and innovations
Innovations matter. Global changes impact the industry. Taking into account the fact that the number of online casinos increases rapidly, you have to be aware of innovations to stay competitive and succeed. Let’s point out the main changes.
- Crypto casinos. Crypto society has been developing, and the urge for privacy and security is rising, too. Allowing their customers to skip filling in personal data while betting is a feature of Bitcoin casinos.
- AI-generated personalization. AI analyzes a player’s behavior and creates solutions for advertising, helps to choose suitable games, etc.
- Provably fair blockchain gambling technology. The fair game principle is proven by cryptographic seeds that give players an opportunity to verify the fairness of games’ outcomes.
- Mobile-focused platform designs. The majority of online casino players use mobile versions of the websites. So it is highly important to design them accurately.
- Regional adjustment. It becomes a crucial factor for a successful conversion – to adjust languages and localize content and payment methods.
- VR-technologies. Virtual reality tools help customers to feel the “real-time” presence while playing, creating a completely new quality of experience. This is the next step in developing platforms.
- Exclusive NFT-based rewards. Free spins are not that exciting anymore because there is a possibility of integration of NFTs as more interesting rewards.
The trends integration choice must be made according to your company’s specific features. Try to test some of them for a clear image of whether your brand benefits from such changes.
Key thoughts
Launching an online casino is a complex process. To make sure you estimate the most valuable resources – time and money – correctly, it is important to create an accurate business plan for 1-5 years. The specialists’ assistance will be helpful to make it in a constructive and less time-consuming way. The right casino business model will serve you a guarantee of a successful start. Even though an iGaming company has to undergo time-consuming, complicated processes, but “no pain, no gain”. The perspective is positive and promising due to the industry growth prognosis. The expected gambling market worth is $153 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of around 11,9% (according to Research Insights), stimulated by smartphone usage growth and AI-driven technologies.
Why choose LicensingAid?
LicensingAid experts can assist you in business plan writing and online casino model choice. Besides, we provide the following tailor-made solutions for your company:
- Trademark registration. We ensure your intellectual property is protected to help you build a brand identity.
- Company creation. It is important to register a company in the chosen jurisdiction due to local requirements.
- Bank and merchant accounts opening. To maintain transactions with high standards of safety and speed, you will need to start online casino bank accounts.
- Gambling license acquisition. Our expertise will help you choose the most suitable and reliable jurisdiction and obtain a gaming license smoothly.
- AML compliance services. The AML policies demonstrate your trustworthiness and core gaming values observance.
- KYC principles incorporation. The KYC standards also define your reputation and competency.
Our professionalism has been proven by many years of cooperation with gambling companies. We have been saving time and money for our clients, leading them to reaching goals fast. Reviewing your business is the first step to creating exclusively generated business solutions. Do not hesitate to contact us for booking a consultation with the leading experts.
