Checklist for new entrepreneurs in gambling

Where do I start?

The moment has come, you have decided to open your casino/sports betting/lottery/poker room or any other type of activity based on gambling and cash winnings.

You are confident in your project and want to open the “virtual” doors to your site to players right now. But, since you’ve heard that the gambling industry is considered a risky business, you decide to protect yourself from the possible risks.

Where to start first? Buy or develop games? Register a company or finish a website first? Clients come to us at completely different stages of their project and each request must be handled individually.

In order to identify the main stages and create a clear structure for the realization of your gambling project, we have written a brief checklist.

Understand if you may be subject to regulation.

It can take a long time to decide whether you need a license for your type of activity or to try and be fined, have website addresses blocked, and suffer criminal prosecution.

In 99% of cases the license is needed. Yes, even if you deposit and make withdrawals only in cryptocurrency.

How to understand for yourself whether your services will fall under the qualification of “organization and carrying out of gambling”?

It’s quite simple, you need to answer a number of questions:

• Is the result of your game random?
• What influences the result of the game more, the skills of the player or randomness?
• Do players benefit financially from the result of the game? (If the game is not for money, but for example gaming items, it is also considered a material benefit).

If the answers are positive, I can say that you are our client and you need a gambling license.

Determine the countries where you will operate

During the introductory consultation, we always ask clients in which countries they plan to provide their services and unfortunately, very often we hear the following answer: “The whole world”.

Why is it important to define the exact list of countries you are going to work in?

First of all, this will determine what license or licenses will be needed to operate. Believe me, there is a big difference in licensing operators for the UK and Malta or Africa and Asia.

Secondly, the payment solutions that will be available to you will depend on this. For accepting and paying out your players will need to open a merchant account, and not just one, because merchant account providers have their own restrictions and rates will differ for the processing of different areas.

Choose your software

It’s quite simple when you buy gambling software from game providers (they may be licensed or unlicensed). In order to get a license you will be asked to show the contracts for providing the games.

What if you have developed your own games?

In that case it will be necessary to pay for the RNG (Random Number Generator) certificate of your gambling software. This certificate can be shown to the regulator and later posted on your website to prove the honesty of your games.

Make your own gambling site

It sounds obvious enough, but very often people seek our advice without a website. To get a license, you have to have a website. The regulator will check your website and examine all your content. The license will be issued for the company and for the specific domain names.

You can’t get a license first and then make a website.

But game providers ask to see license before they grant us their games! This is a common situation.

Some game providers will ask to show your gaming license because they have an obligation to provide games only to licensed operators.

Two solutions are available:

• The first is to show the game providers that you will be getting a license. They will agree to give you games subject to obtaining a gaming license in the future.
• The second is to find game providers who do not require a gaming license to sign a contract and provide games. In the future, after obtaining a license (depends on the license) you can fill the site with gambling content from providers who do not give games without a license.

Choose a gambling license

A gaming license is issued only to a legal entity registered in the country of licensing. If it is a Curaçao license, the company must be registered in Curaçao.

It is impossible to get such a license for the sole proprietor in Ukraine.

If you have marked all the points above, you are ready to make your own gambling project.