Comtrade executive maps the economics of build-or-buy casino tech

Gambling operators weighing whether to build an in-house casino platform or license one from a third party face a decision that rarely stays settled, according to Steven Valentine, chief commercial officer at Comtrade Gaming, speaking to iGaming Business.

Valentine described the pattern as cyclical. Operators often start with a third-party vendor, grow frustrated that the provider is slowing them down or failing to deliver, and move development in-house. Years later, as staff with platform expertise leave the business, that home-built technology ages and starts to falter, pushing the operator back to the market for a vendor. Valentine said this full cycle typically runs eight to 15 years and tends to repeat.

Comtrade Gaming, headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia, launched its first gaming software project in 2001, and Valentine joined the company in 2010. He said scale is the first thing operators should weigh before attempting to build. In his assessment, an operator generating less than £250m a year in gross gaming revenue is unlikely to consider developing its own platform, while those above that threshold have a genuine option.

Decisions above that scale still hinge on strategy rather than size alone, Valentine said, pointing to questions over whether existing technology is holding an operator back, whether in-house development would let it move faster, or whether it simply chose the wrong vendor originally.

On cost, Valentine said operators frequently underestimate both the budget and the timeline needed to sustain a platform once it has launched, including overheads such as round-the-clock technical support. He said the investment required in the launch year tends to recur every year afterwards, with no significant scaling down, because the team needed to build an iGaming platform is broadly the same size as the team needed to maintain and keep developing it.

Valentine framed the core question for any operator considering the in-house route as whether it is prepared to effectively become a technology company, adding that this is a difficult shift from a mindset perspective. He said operators are typically oriented around the needs of the business today and tomorrow, whereas technology development demands planning much further ahead and a less reactive posture. He also noted that the cost of ownership tends to rise over time as what has been built grows more complex, compounded by the recurring cost of transferring institutional knowledge as staff turn over.

Valentine said few businesses manage this transition successfully, and that even larger operators with their own platforms commonly fall back on third-party technology when entering new markets, because in-house development cannot react quickly enough.

That hybrid model, building in some areas while buying in others, can work well for established operators running across multiple jurisdictions, Valentine said. Using a third-party vendor for market entry offers speed and can help manage compliance requirements, since vendors bring local regulatory expertise that de-risks expansion.

Valentine stressed that selecting the right vendor in the first place is critical given the scale of trust involved, and said due diligence is straightforward because most of the relevant information in the industry is freely available. He suggested that asking a vendor's existing clients a few direct questions is often enough to separate a reliable partner from one that will eventually prompt an operator to build its own platform instead.