Technology and platforms
How an online casino is put together
Between a player pressing spin and a game paying out there are at least five separate companies. This is who they are and what each one is paid for.
The reference
Insight Library
Each piece answers one mechanical question in full: how a licence works, where odds come from, what a platform does, how a bonus is costed, how money moves, what certification tests. Written to be used rather than skimmed.
Most writing about this industry describes events. These pieces describe mechanisms, because the mechanisms change slowly and explain the events. Once you know what a turnover tax does to a low-margin product, a market exit after a budget announcement stops being surprising.
Nothing here is advice, commercial or legal. Where a market rule is cited, the relevant market profile records the position and the date it was reviewed.
Casino and games 3Sports betting 2Legal and compliance 5Payments and banking 1Marketing and affiliates 3Technology and platforms 4Lottery 1Responsible gambling 1Esports and novelty markets 1Land-based and retail 1
Legal and compliance
What a gaming licence actually covers
A licence is not a badge of quality and it is not valid everywhere. What it authorises, who it binds, and why one company often holds a dozen.
Legal and compliance
How gambling is taxed, and why the base matters
A tax on stakes and a tax on gross gaming revenue can carry the same headline number and produce completely different businesses.
Legal and compliance
What grey and black markets actually mean
The industry uses three words for the legal status of a market and rarely defines them. Here is what each one means in practice.
Casino and games
How return to player and volatility actually work
Two numbers describe a slot, and almost everything written about them is wrong in the same way. What they measure, and what they cannot tell you.
Technology and platforms
What a platform provider does
The least visible company in the chain runs the accounts, the wallet, the bonuses and the regulatory reporting. Why almost nobody builds their own.
Technology and platforms
How game aggregation works
One integration gives an operator thousands of games from hundreds of studios. The mechanism explains both the variety in a lobby and the thin margins behind it.
Technology and platforms
How a game is certified before anyone can play it
Random number generators, test laboratories and jurisdiction-specific builds: what actually happens between a finished game and its first real stake.
Casino and games
How live dealer studios work
A product that is half broadcast operation and half casino floor, with a cost structure closer to television than to software.
Casino and games
How jackpots are funded
Nobody gives away a seven-figure prize. Where the money comes from, who carries the liability, and why some jackpots must drop by a deadline.
Sports betting
How sports odds are made
Where a price comes from, what the margin is, and why most bookmakers no longer set their own numbers.
Sports betting
How in-play betting changed the sportsbook
Most football betting now happens after kick-off. The shift rewrote the technology, the data market and the regulation around it.
Payments and banking
How money actually moves in iGaming
Deposits, withdrawals, high-risk classification and the reason a payment page looks different in every country.
Legal and compliance
How identity and anti-money-laundering checks work
Who a customer is, where the money came from, and what an operator is required to do when the answers do not add up.
Marketing and affiliates
How affiliate deals work
Revenue share, cost per acquisition and hybrid deals, plus the clauses that decide who actually carries the risk.
Marketing and affiliates
How a bonus is costed
Wagering requirements, game weighting and bonus abuse: why a free bet is an accounting exercise rather than a gift.
Marketing and affiliates
How advertising rules differ by market
From an open market with a code of practice to an outright ban, with watersheds, sponsorship limits and bonus prohibitions in between.
Responsible gambling
How responsible gambling tools work
Deposit limits, exclusion registers, affordability checks and duty of care, and the difference between a tool and an obligation.
Legal and compliance
How a company enters a new market
The sequence from legal assessment to launch, and the parts that routinely take longer than anyone plans for.
Lottery
Why lottery is a different industry
The largest gambling sector in the world works on decade-long contracts, state monopolies and occasional play. Almost none of the casino playbook applies.
Esports and novelty markets
What esports betting actually is
Betting on competitive video gaming, the skin economy that preceded it, and why integrity is the hardest part.
Land-based and retail
Why land-based rules shaped the online ones
Stake caps, spin speeds and certification culture all arrived online from the machine halls. The inheritance explains several otherwise strange rules.