AMA: I Operate an Online Casino

[o48o]

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.

Thanks for doing this:

1: Does token swapping inside the site require seperate exchange license and it's that harder to come by?
2: How do you require starting capital for house bank? And can you get any kind of insurance for it?
3. How do you spot laundered money, and accounts involved in money laundering? For example if i loan money from someone who has been using mixers, or they are otherwise linked to shady sources, will you freeze my account or is there a rule that how many links can my account can have to the possible laundered money account?

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[SamReomo]

This if probably one of the most useful and helpful thread on the gambling board. I highly appreciate OP's efforts to create this thread and answer all the questions with professional answers. I'm impressed that how useful information we are getting by reading this thread. Each reply from OP is helping us to understand the details of the online casinos and how they operate.

Here are my questions:

1. Why most of the casinos that run poker games have most countries in the ban list?
2. How those casinos host their site which type of web hosting services they prefer to use?
3. Can you also tell me that how powerful VPS machines those casinos need when they have more than 1000's of concurrent players?
4. Is the KYC data of the customers safe on the online casinos? I mean won't they share it with third parties for profit?
5. How do casinos find scammers and hackers who wins by finding bugs in the games or casino's web applications?

[SirJohnVonSlotty]

1: Does token swapping inside the site require seperate exchange license and it's that harder to come by?
2: How do you require starting capital for house bank? And can you get any kind of insurance for it?
3. How do you spot laundered money, and accounts involved in money laundering? For example if i loan money from someone who has been using mixers, or they are otherwise linked to shady sources, will you freeze my account or is there a rule that how many links can my account can have to the possible laundered money account?

#1. I'm not familiar with this practice so I can't say anything about it.
#2. In most cases you have an already established operator investing into a "satellite" brand, that satellite brand is operated by a completely new team that was initially pitching the idea. So let us say that you and your friends are really good at managing other people's casino departments (e.g. you work for Bet365 or Stake), you've already outgrew the positions available within those companies, so you decide to open up your own casino that has some special marketing formula, you would then pitch your idea to operators who would be willing to open up a satellite brand. Sometimes even platform providers or game providers decide to act as investors, and you obviously have a lot of crypto exchange investors. If you would like to connect with these people, you would need to attend conferences and mingle around igaming events.
#3. Uf, also a complicated issue. The money laundering matrix is huge and can spot it from miles away, but although it's a smart little tool, I assure you that people who launder money are usually very, very stupid. Last time I had to deal with an issue the gentleman opened up three accounts under e-mails like "name.surname@gmail.com" + "surname.surname@gmail.com" and "namesky.surnamesky@gmail.com" under the same IP address, and claimed that those accounts aren't his, although it was obvious by just looking at the mails that it's the same person. But keep in mind that not every individual casino does the money laundering check, it's on a group basis. So if 1000 casinos have the same platform provider (SoftSwiss), the platform provider checks the players on a group level, with group level data, and then flags them. With that we can spot a money launderer even before he deposits on our casino, because he has a track record on other casinos.

Here are my questions:

1. Why most of the casinos that run poker games have most countries in the ban list?
2. How those casinos host their site which type of web hosting services they prefer to use?
3. Can you also tell me that how powerful VPS machines those casinos need when they have more than 1000's of concurrent players?
4. Is the KYC data of the customers safe on the online casinos? I mean won't they share it with third parties for profit?
5. How do casinos find scammers and hackers who wins by finding bugs in the games or casino's web applications?

#1. It's extremely hard to find a reputable poker provider, like, really hard. Pokerstars is dominating here and there's nothing that we can do about it. Because of that you'll not see that many casinos with live poker games.
#2. It's usually offshore dedicated servers with cloudflare, DDOS attacks and similar are common things so you want something reliable. But the industry is slowly moving towards headless solutions, but it's hard to find hosting providers that want to host a casino, you can't just go to your regular godaddy or a2hosting provider and host a casino there.
#3. Most of the solutions are web apps made in angular and react, so I'm not sure a VPS is the ideal solution, but overall a 6-8 core CPU and 32 GB RAM could do the job (I think).
#4. It really depends on the casino, some operators share your KYC data across their brands, others don't, but I assure you that it's in no ones interest to make problems for the players.
#5. That's probably a good question for game providers, I don't know the answer, but I'll try to find out.

[dkbit98]

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.

Dear SirJohn,
Can you give me any advices and teach me how to avoid getting blacklisted in banks as high risk customer because of my previous working connection with clients from certain risk countries?
I am asking for one friend who needs urgent help with this
Hope you can help.

[acroman08]

Hi, sorry if I am being a little insensitive here or being a little bit nosy but I just gotta ask, what happened to coinslotty.com? I mean, I remember your last post on the coinslotty.com ANN thread saying that your team would not be moving forward with the project anymore(I assume you were discontinuing the operation of coinslotty.com) but I just checked the website just now and it seems to be operational, did a new management take over the website?

also, I really commend that your team was very generous to the signature campaign participants after you decided to stop the signature campaign.

[Potato Chips]

That was a good read! Allow me to chime in 

1. What do you think of bitcointalk as a platform in terms of promoting casinos? and how likely are you to run or recommend to run more campaigns here?

2. I've seen fellow members using amlbot.com to gauge an address' risk score on custodial platforms. Is it popular in the industry?

3. With the increasing regulatory pressure on crypto, what's the most thing you're worried as someone who is in the industry of online casinos supporting cryptocurrencies?

thanks for doing god's work 🙇‍♂️

[dansus021]

Im gonna ask a simple question

How much revenue that gambling site can earn in a year? Because some companies is not publicly trade then the data is not be shared anywhere So I'm just curious. are they can be loss in revenue or just always profit

1. What do you think of bitcointalk as a platform in terms of promoting casinos? and how likely are you to run or recommend to run more campaigns here?
3. With the increasing regulatory pressure on crypto, what's the most thing you're worried as someone who is in the industry of online casinos supporting cryptocurrencies?

and Im currently gonna ask the same question nowadays crypto regulated is very tight and I do believe in coming year this gonna be more tight is there any movement from the crypto gambling provider or they are gonna fully comply with the gov.

[dothebeats]

I only have one question: what do you think of big names in the crypto gambling industry that operate without any licenses such as bustabit? Are they automatically in the radar of law enforcements of the countries they serve in because they are operating without any official licenses? I'm still confused as to how a license affects the operations of a crypto casino since these guys are operating for too long without one but are still compliant to KYC/AML regulations.

[SirJohnVonSlotty]

Hi, sorry if I am being a little insensitive here or being a little bit nosy but I just gotta ask, what happened to coinslotty.com? I mean, I remember your last post on the coinslotty.com ANN thread saying that your team would not be moving forward with the project anymore(I assume you were discontinuing the operation of coinslotty.com) but I just checked the website just now and it seems to be operational, did a new management take over the website?

also, I really commend that your team was very generous to the signature campaign participants after you decided to stop the signature campaign.

I mean, in short, both me and the team are from the fiat world, but we thought we could take on a crypto project and make it successful. Just six months in we figured out that it would be smarter to just focus all of our resources into a fiat brand, instead burning money on something that we're not skilled at yet. It wasn't a pump and dump scheme or anything like that, all suppliers, partners and players were paid out, with some of them being on this forum, so it was just a business decision.

I only have one question: what do you think of big names in the crypto gambling industry that operate without any licenses such as bustabit? Are they automatically in the radar of law enforcements of the countries they serve in because they are operating without any official licenses? I'm still confused as to how a license affects the operations of a crypto casino since these guys are operating for too long without one but are still compliant to KYC/AML regulations.

Because they are playing with a loop hole, same like skin gambling. Inventing your own game or method of gambling is one way how to go around all the licenses and nuisances of the legitimate world.

How much revenue that gambling site can earn in a year? Because some companies is not publicly trade then the data is not be shared anywhere So I'm just curious. are they can be loss in revenue or just always profit

There are hundreds of casinos that are a publicly trading company, but people don't know that, and as a publicly trading company they have to disclose their EBIT-a. Betsson is one example, and you can always check out their investor calls and how much money they make. Just keep in mind that they own 10+ brands. In their latest report from last year, they've earned a bit more than 50 Million in 1 quarter, so within 1 year that would be around 200 Million. Here's a link to it: https://www.betssonab.com/en/press/betsson-ab-publ-trading-update-second-quarter-2023-2143785

1. What do you think of bitcointalk as a platform in terms of promoting casinos? and how likely are you to run or recommend to run more campaigns here?
2. I've seen fellow members using amlbot.com to gauge an address' risk score on custodial platforms. Is it popular in the industry?
3. With the increasing regulatory pressure on crypto, what's the most thing you're worried as someone who is in the industry of online casinos supporting cryptocurrencies?

#1. I think 75% of the participants are destroying the gambling board with their campaigns since people just randomly write shit to meet their daily quota. However, I do think that if you're operating a crypto business, that you should have some form of presence on this forum. For now I have no projects to advertise.
#2. I see that the project is just a few years old, I never heard of it though.
#3. I'm not that worried about regulators, if you're working like a regular business and follow best practices the regulators can't do anything to you except help you get more licenses, what I'm worried though are the huge price differences that the crypto world is bringing in. A player or an affiliate could get $500 equivalent in bitcoin on Friday, and on Monday that could turn into $1500 because of a BTC price hike, multiply that with 100 people and you're out of business. It's really hard to do book keeping and keep a healthy bank roll if you need to work with both fiat and crypto. If it would be a crypto only business like bustabit then that's a different thing.

Dear SirJohn,
Can you give me any advices and teach me how to avoid getting blacklisted in banks as high risk customer because of my previous working connection with clients from certain risk countries?
I am asking for one friend who needs urgent help with this
Hope you can help.

Tell that friend that he's fucked, nothing else to add

[fruktik]

Depending on your platform and game providers, as well as marketing suppliers and the size of your team, anywhere between $3.5 to $5.5 million. Whoever tells you less never operated a successful casino.  

Quite a decent amount of money, if you think about it that way. It seems to me that with this amount of funds it is possible to open not only an online casino. There are many business options available. Why am I doing all this?

By what criteria does a person decide to open this particular type of activity? What makes him consider this business option and not another. If there are answers to these questions, then I will carefully read about it.

[SirJohnVonSlotty]

By what criteria does a person decide to open this particular type of activity?

How I understood it, most of the investments from this industry come from "old casino money", basically generations of people who worked within this industry.

Those people then transferred from offline to online, and offered great salaries to their workers.

The workers were introduced and trained in casino operations, and slowly as they progressed through their career decided to open up their own casino, and also offer great salaries to attract talent.

Then that talent again went through the same cycle and decided to open up their own casino.

Rarely I meet someone who woke up one morning and said "hey you know what, I'm gonna go open a Stake competitor" and succeeded at doing that. Sure there are some unicorns here and there, but in general I think that the trajectory was the one from above.

[SamReomo]

Thanks for answering my previous questions, I truly appreciate those useful answers. I have a few more questions that I want to ask you.

1. How can someone possibly join a casino as a team member and get paid for it?
2. How casinos know if someone is from US and is using a VPN? There are many VPN providers that work in sheath mode where no information about their data centers or other details is available. You can't track those VPN's or proxies on any of the tracking sites then how will the casino be able to know that the user is from USA or from the country whose IP he's using?
3. Let's say if someone has good a good domain name that can be very useful for a casino and their business. Then how should that person initiate a deal with a casino to sell that domain name?
4. I would also like to know that how much does casinos pay the team members on weekly or monthly basis?

[Pmalek]

Cool thread, let's give it a try.

I have never had a positive opinion on casino bonuses. They are usually followed by high wagering requirements of 20-30x if you are lucky and can even go up to 200x if you are not lucky. Then there is the no wagering bonus where the casino doesn't require that its players roll over the winnings (acquired from bonus funds) an x number of times. But these bonuses have even higher initial wagering requirements than the wagering ones (without counting rolling over the winnings) or other restrictions like lower maximum win limits, lower maximum bets, etc.

If there are a few bonuses issued by certain online casinos that you personally believe are worth it, which ones would those be? 

[SirJohnVonSlotty]

Thanks for answering my previous questions, I truly appreciate those useful answers. I have a few more questions that I want to ask you.

1. How can someone possibly join a casino as a team member and get paid for it?
2. How casinos know if someone is from US and is using a VPN? There are many VPN providers that work in sheath mode where no information about their data centers or other details is available. You can't track those VPN's or proxies on any of the tracking sites then how will the casino be able to know that the user is from USA or from the country whose IP he's using?
3. Let's say if someone has good a good domain name that can be very useful for a casino and their business. Then how should that person initiate a deal with a casino to sell that domain name?
4. I would also like to know that how much does casinos pay the team members on weekly or monthly basis?

#1. Develop a skillset needed within the industry... development, marketing, customer relationships, card dealers etc. Google for "iGaming jobs" in your area and you'll get a better picture.
#2. Game patterns, log in patterns, group info etc... There are a lot of breadcrumbs that lead to the conclusion, and a lot of group data. Remember, one casino rarely operates alone, it's mostly 1 brand owned by a company that operates several brands, that is hosted on a platform that hosts 1000+ brands, and they have group data.
#3. You can list the domain on GoDaddy Auctions or HugeDomains.com, but overall most casinos go with the path of least resistance, if domain A is taken, they go for domain B. In most cases people in this industry are not that creative, so even if you have a really, really good and creative name, they will most likely ignore it and go for something generic like "luckyspadecasino" - which I personally hate. With our group we're trying to get some unique stuff going on.
#4. It's regular employment that ranges between 25k to 150k per year, depending on the person, their seniority, skill level etc. Google "iGaming Jobs Average Salary" and you'll get a better overview.

Cool thread, let's give it a try.

I have never had a positive opinion on casino bonuses. They are usually followed by high wagering requirements of 20-30x if you are lucky and can even go up to 200x if you are not lucky. Then there is the no wagering bonus where the casino doesn't require that its players roll over the winnings (acquired from bonus funds) an x number of times. But these bonuses have even higher initial wagering requirements than the wagering ones (without counting rolling over the winnings) or other restrictions like lower maximum win limits, lower maximum bets, etc.

If there are a few bonuses issued by certain online casinos that you personally believe are worth it, which ones would those be?  

Remember what I told you in the start; a casino is here to entertain you. It wouldn't be that much entertainment if you would deposit $50, put it all on one spin, lose $45 out of it and then withdraw the remaining $5. This is why bonuses and wagering come into place. A casino is not here to make money for the players, it's here to entertain and give that thrill of a possible win. What is the goal of YouTube? To entertain the user and make money off of them. Same with the casino industry. We are basically fighting for the same thing, a users time.

Usually if I feel like gambling or want to introduce my friends to the industry, I go to an offline casino, and there aren't that many bonuses there. So I'm really the wrong person to ask about bonus recommendations

This is a great topic and you are very expert and knowledgeable about casinos.

May I join in asking? Who determines the win rate in a game? Like the RTP on slot machines and can the casino set the win rate or is this determined by the game provider? and if I play at a live casino (blackjack at a pragmatic provider) and get a big win, who will pay me? is it a casino or a third party (pragmatic)?

Ah, I had an extensive post about this a while ago but I can't find it now... Basically the RTP is set by the game provider by default, the game provider is the one who wants to keep a good reputation, since the players mostly join a casino because of a specific game. The RTP in online casinos is much higher than in offline casinos, and it's better regulated, so if I would want to play slots, I would definitely play them online where it ranges in the mid 90%, than go offline where it ranges in the lower 70%. Live casino winnings, if not a progressive jackpot, are paid by the casino itself.

People usually think that we hate winners, but it's the opposite. Since the house has an edge, we don't worry that much about the winners, we actually welcome them, since winners share good reviews, recommend other people and so on.

At one point I was working with an operation that used to give out Teslas and create major marketing campaigns around it, so basically winners are good for the business.

[examplens]

SirJohnVon, nice stories

What is the most bizarre thing you have encountered while doing this job?

How do these various methods and winning strategies look from the casino's side, which certain users brag about and even resell? I have seen many times how someone sells a winning method, where it is possible to earn 200% or xx% a day, plus everything is legal and the casino does not recognize it and does not punish it. Example
I know it's bullshit, but experience from the casino side could be interesting.

p.s. Do you perhaps have a winning strategy that you are willing to share, of course with compensation 

[SirJohnVonSlotty]

What is the most bizarre thing you have encountered while doing this job?

I'm most experienced in acquisition through organic (SEO), and have been ranking casinos for a while now. The main issue here is that not a lot of them can be in top 10 on Google for the term "online casino", so sometimes competitors get a bit naughty and try to use negative SEO attacks against you, which mostly includes sending low quality porn links pointing to your site. Now, this in general isn't something new, negative SEO attacks have been in the industry for a while now, but the bizzare thing that I've encountered was a targeted negative SEO attack. The owner of the casino that I've managed was Muslim, so the person doing the negative SEO attack decided to build 1000+ links by using his name + surname + pig meat as anchors. You would see a lot of anchors like "pork burger" or "pizza with pineapple and pulled pork". Imagine a porn site writing about an intercourse with a pig, and linking to your casino under a nasty anchor, or an overspammed recipe site writing about best pork recipes, linking to your casino under the anchor pig meat. It was really a bizarre negative SEO attack that I haven't encountered before (or even since). Luckily I know how to manage them so I've quickly removed most of it, but some webmasters are hard to reach so there are still articles with his name + pig intercourse out there.

Overall it's a very competitive market where everyone has the same games and almost similar budget, so it's about who's gonna do what with it. I personally go the more creative route (if you remember, for the previous casino I've did "golden chocolate coins"), but there are competitors who just don't have the brain power to invent something that can go viral, so they approach it from the darker side.

How do these various methods and winning strategies look from the casino's side, which certain users brag about and even resell? I have seen many times how someone sells a winning method, where it is possible to earn 200% or xx% a day, plus everything is legal and the casino does not recognize it and does not punish it. Example
I know it's bullshit, but experience from the casino side could be interesting.

p.s. Do you perhaps have a winning strategy that you are willing to share, of course with compensation 

Martingale and d’Alembert systems in live casino games are proven, but you would need to have a good budget and nerves of steel, card counting in blackjack is also proven to work if there are just a few decks (which is rare). However, I do not promote gambling as an income source, it always backfires, it's best to keep it for fun. I usually just shrug the other methods off, everyone is trying to get on the money train so a lot of bullshit is out there Just note, if you do plan to enter an online casino operation with a system in mind, make sure that you've read the TOS and have all the KYC in check, because if we find out that there's something fishy, like arbitration or some other form of rule bending, the department responsible for fishing out the scammers will be on your neck

Basically think of it like this, a casino platform has 30 years of data on casino scammers and a whole legal team that they use to battle them, you have 3 months of internet/youtube data on how to scam a casino with a forum account to "blame and shame them because you did nothing wrong" = who do you think will win?

At one point I was active in the scam accusation sub here on the forum, but figured out that in most cases it's just scammers trying to name and shame casinos who figured out that they were going against the TOS.

[BitPuzzle]

What have been your major difficulty since starting your business until now? And how does running an online casino influence to your personal life?

[SirJohnVonSlotty]

What have been your major difficulty since starting your business until now?

Dealing with scammers and people who want to get money out of you, instead of being creative around marketing activities. It doesn't matter if it's the players, the suppliers or just random people, if you're in this industry, everyone wants a piece and sees an opportunity in you. There's also this thing called an "iGaming tax", which means that once a supplier smells that you're in iGaming, there's a higher price just for you there, and everyone wants a piece of your revenue. Sometimes I'm ok with it, other-times I'm annoyed by it. Additionally, to prove my point, after opening this thread I've gotten several pm's with random offers.

But basically, not having the room to use my core skills enough due to the high amount of scammers and red flags.

And how does running an online casino influence to your personal life?

You need to stick "to your own people", otherwise you'll be judged constantly, so most of my friends are in iGaming as well. I rarely tell someone "out of the circle" what I'm doing since it's stigmatized, especially my aunt who's husband (my uncle) gambled away a huge amount of money and risked bankruptcy because of it. Telling her that I'm on the other side would probably create more drama, and me telling her that my uncle is an idiot for expecting to get rich from a casino would probably kill of the whole relationship.

But otherwise, as an operator you're in a some-what power position within the industry. We have the largest budgets, largest operations and without us nothing else would move, so if there are some conferences or networking events involved, usually everyone wants to hang out with you, which makes it easy to sort out those with good intentions and befriend them. People in this industry are also fairly young, so finding friends is easy, but finding smart friends is hard - most of them experience money for the first time and start doing stupid things with it, so overdrinking, overeating, spending money on drugs or other stupid shit is common.

I do plan to decouple from the industry in a few years though, I'm currently saving for my video game studio, I have a few JRPG's in mind that I would like to create, so 5-10 years from now I would see myself less involved, maybe as a part-time consultant, but not full time like now. I think that the video game industry is a bit more forgiving, although it's almost the same mechanic.

[Pmalek]

Martingale and d’Alembert systems in live casino games are proven, but you would need to have a good budget and nerves of steel.

And you would need luck on your side. Even though it sounds highly unlikely looking at it superficially, it can happen that you get into a losing streak that lasts 7, 8, or even up to 10 rounds. If your initial wager was $5, you are looking at a huge amount of money you have to wager to stay afloat. But not only that, you have to ensure that the game's betting limits will allow you to make that next big bet. If not, you just wasted thousands of dollars for nothing.

Speaking of using such systems. Do online casinos have automated systems in place that can recognize wagering using the Martingale system to limit you asap or is that a manual decision by an actual casino representative?

[SirJohnVonSlotty]

Speaking of using such systems. Do online casinos have automated systems in place that can recognize wagering using the Martingale system to limit you asap or is that a manual decision by an actual casino representative?

Depends on the platform, some have it, others don't, but have limits in place that block the system entirely, or go through a manual review. Most live casino game providers offer you recordings of the session that was played, so you, as a manager, can review it and see what happened. If you're using a system and score big, but your funds are not immediately available for withdrawal, you're most likely under a manual review, with several tickets and departments checking if all is cool with you before releasing the funds. Sometimes it happens that a player thinks that he's "playing the casino" but actually just gets lucky, and then they go and brag on the forums or write tutorials about it, without knowing that it was just pure luck and that it can't be replicated.