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There are nearly 3,000 online casinos operating worldwide today. But, have you ever asked how an online casino actually works?
In less than three decades, the betting business has ka-boomed, but online casinos’ operations have remained less than full visible.
In 2024, online gambling revenues are projected to reach $97.15 billion. By 2029, Statista predicts more than 290 million users will push revenues to more than $132 billion.
Never bet against the betting business.
Who operates these online websites? Do they actually need staff?
They’re almost all located offshore; countries like Malta, Gibraltar, Curacao, and the Isle of Man. How does an online casino work? And what does it take to run a successful one?
Join us as we take a Techopedia deep dive, and peek behind the curtains, into the often-opaque world of the online sportsbooks and casinos on the frontline of the online gambling revolution.
We’ll take a look at all the interconnected departments, including:
- Product – Casino
- Product – Sportsbook
- Management and Executives
- Compliance and Legal
- Marketing and Advertising
- Customer Support
- Affiliates and VIP
- IT, Security and Software
- Finance and Payments
Product – Casino
In 1994, Microgaming founder Martin Moshal cobbled together a working online casino. To play on it, players had to await the delivery of a compact disc, to download the software onto their computer.
Intertops was the first ever sportsbook to add an online casino to its portfolio. Cryptologic wasn’t far behind, but if you wanted an online casino, your options were limited.
Today, anyone with enough cash, and a gaming license, can buy an online casino. There are hundreds of online casino game suppliers, with thousands of games in their portfolios.
The role of product at an online casino is basically to oversee the operation of the games, watching for glitches and errors, and liaising with suppliers about new game releases, offers, and upgrades.
Most serious casinos also offer players an online live casino option. This is where you can connect with live dealers, playing blackjack, roulette, and more.
The product team will monitor the live casino offering to ensure the service is on point, on brand, and up to scratch.
Product – Sportsbook
These days, you can also buy a fully serviced sportsbook, off-the-shelf. However, most serious online sportsbooks will have their own oddsmakers, risk management and trading team.
These are the people that players bet against. Their role is absolutely vital. If these teams make a mistake, it can cost the business a lot of money.
Traditionally, sportsbooks would offer jobs to players who were rinsing them every week. If you can’t beat them, hire them.
A great oddsmaker is worth his or her weight in gold. Very often stressed beyond normal human limits, you will find members of this team crying in the corner of a darkened bar, worried that the +4 point spread on the Ravens is a costly mistake and the liability could be crippling.
This is a job for professional gamblers with nerves of steel and livers of adamantium.
The C-Squad: Management and Executives
In the early days of online gambling, the executive team was usually composed of the individuals who built and created the company.
These pioneers either shifted from traditional high street or coupon gambling, or were software developers and innovators, busy writing code to make online gambling happen.
The management would be engaged at every level of the business; from marketing and HR, to product development and recruitment.
Over time, as the various processes have become defined and embedded, the gap has widened between the men in the suits and the troops in the office.
When the executive team isn’t busy looking at overall strategy and operations, you can usually catch them cutting deals at the nineteenth hole.
Legal Eagles: Compliance and Legal
If you’ve got a law degree but never wanted your day in court, working for an online gambling site will ensure you are both busy and well compensated.
Smaller sportsbooks and casinos are less likely to have an in-house legal team; opting instead to outsource the work to specialist solicitors and consultants.
The legal department at any online gambling business is one of the busiest in the building. Typical items on the agenda include:
- Regulatory Compliance: ensuring the business has the necessary licenses for the various territories it serves
- Licenses: making sure that the business has a valid gaming license to operate from the country or countries it takes bets in
- Marketing Compliance: overseeing all marketing materials and brand messaging, ensuring that the business conforms to stringent regulatory controls
- Contracts: keeping the paperwork on point for contractors, staff, and suppliers
- Disputes and Litigation: handling the thorny issues of unhappy customers, litigious individuals, and businesses with a beef
In recent years, betting businesses have received scores of multi-million-dollar fines for social responsibility, money laundering, and compliance failure. It’s a department with a huge amount of power.
The relationship between compliance and marketing is often bumpy. The marketing department is eager to promise a BIG WIN with every spin.
Generally, you will find the head of legal either playing golf with members of the C-squad, or in a blind panic; worried that he or she has missed a very important and specific detail in the latest license application form.
Team Brand: Marketing and Advertising
In the office of dreams, crazy concepts and innovative ideas are routinely kicked into the long grass; usually by legal, compliance, and business intelligence (see above).
The trio of gloom; happy to shatter the fruits of a productive thought shower with the harsh reality of stats, data, and law.
In the beginning, marketing an online casino was very easy. Virtually every single email was opened. Affiliates could drive traffic to an online casino, simply by writing the word ‘casino’ a thousand times, as well as optimizing their site with a hundred links to the same casino.
And in the creative department, anything went. It was the Wild West.
Today, the modern online casino marketing department is fueled by data and business intelligence. Off the shelf bonus and product marketing campaigns are rebadged to fit the brand’s style book.
There is still space for the occasional innovative campaign, but with legal and compliance breathing down the department’s collective neck, it can be hard work.
Call Me (1): Customer Support
Online casino and sportsbook customer support has been a critical part of the business since day one.
Technical issues, money transfer problems, game rules, complaints, and more, all filter through the customer support team. It’s one of the few areas in online gaming where a player can experience actual human interaction.
Today, smaller operations can outsource customer support. There are multiple channels by which you can engage, including chat, email, and telephone.
In the pre-compliance days, customer support could upsell callers with bonus offers and exciting lines on upcoming games.
These days, things are much stricter and online casinos are obliged to conduct a Know Your Customer (KYC) procedure.
They need to verify age and identity, check the source of funds, watch risk profiles, and develop a real understanding of every player.
Because of this, customer support is a compliance minefield and has to be treated with great care and due diligence.
The customer support team always sticks closely together and generally arrives en masse to any company social event. They have the shared secret knowledge, and hidden pain that comes with customer comms.
Call Me (2): Affiliates and VIP
Ever since online gambling started, the VIP department has existed.
Often staffed with the most well connected, well dressed, and well put together individuals, the VIP team takes care of the high rollers and the big spenders.
Online casinos can’t comp players that same way that a Las Vegas casino can, so the VIP team organizes trips, sends goodies, and stays in close contact with high value players.
Today, a significant part of the VIP role is ensuring that the high rollers roll within their means. It’s a subtle balancing act for a gambling business.
Geek Squad: IT, Security and Software
Got a problem with your laptop? Perhaps, your internet connection is acting up. It’s time to say a silent prayer and attempt to contact that most secretive of all office departments: IT.
Somewhere in the building, a few sun-averse individuals are playing Dota 2 or Fortnite; generally ignoring calls for help, unless they are from the aforementioned good looking VIP support department.
No one really knows where the IT department is or what it does. It’s not needed, until things go wrong.
In fact, the IT team now has oversight of all the casino security systems. If Russian hackers start a DDoS attack, the Fortnite marathon is put on hold, as IT tries to combat the problem.
Although elusive, IT is arguably the single most important department in the building. If the lights aren’t on – no one is coming to play.
The Money Pit: Finance and Payments
(Arguably) even more secretive and closely guarded than IT is the finance department.
All the payment processing takes place here; funds are wired around the world to consultants, suppliers, staff, and players collecting their winnings. In the early days, there were only a few payment processing options: credit card, wire, and bank transfer.
Today, there are scores of different ways to move money around. Most online sportsbooks and casinos offer their players different options for payment, including crypto for those adventurous enough to play at online crypto casinos.
The finance department is where the juggling takes place. It’s where the money lands, gets counted, and is redistributed.
FAQs
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References
- https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news/enforcement-action (UK Gambling Commission)
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