How to start a casino business?
During the last 5 years people approached me with questions about casino investments and how to start a casino business. Some were eyeing online operations and some were interested in opening a land-based casino. Almost everybody had an impression that casino business is always highly profitable, easy money so to speak. All but one investor lost their interest after hearing the details. Online casino investment suddenly did not seem attractive, mainly because of high share of marketing expenses and geographical limitations. Land-based casino operations seemed to have very high taxes.
Why were potential investors scared off? They had false beliefs and lost their enthusiasm when they heard some truth. The main fact that sometimes comes as a surprise to somebody who is either not familiar with gambling business or is familiar but from a gambler’s perspective – casino always wins but in the long run and only if the casino is operated in a professional manner.
I will try to explain casino business without getting into too much detail. There are 2 types of casino operations:
Land-Based / Floating Casinos
Online Casinos
They can further be divided as follows:
Land-Based / Floating Casinos (Off-line casinos):
- Casinos with hotels
- Casinos in integrated resorts
- Casinos in city hotels
- Just casinos
- Electronic casinos (Slots only casinos without Live Game tables)
- Floating casinos
- Casinos on river boats
- Casinos on ferries
- Casinos on cruise ships
Online Casinos:
- Web Based Casinos
- Download Casinos
There are two possible ways to start an off-line casino business:
- Open a new casino
- Purchase an existing casino or become a partner in an existing casino.
If you are new to casino business or have only vague understanding about casino operations you must have an experienced casino professional to lead you through initial stages – market research, planning, feasibility study, business plan, casino floor design, casino equipment purchase, recruitment of key personnel, etc.
Although any mistakes can be corrected, some might turn out quite costly or some might not be possible to rectify at all.
- If you choose a casino and slot management software and later realise it is not what you needed, most likely you will have to continue using it unless you want to spend $200,000-$300,000 to change it.
- If you purchase slot machines that are not favoured by your targeted market, your revenues will suffer.
- Flaws in your casino floor design might keep you from getting maximum returns or even increase your operational costs.
There are many ways to start an online casino business. Main options are as follows:
- Creating your own casino software platform.
- Purchase a white label casino and brand it to match your vision.
- Purchase an existing online casino.
A great resource for anybody wondering how to open a casino business is a book by Bill Friedman – Designing casinos to dominate the competition: The Friedman international standards of casino design.
If you want to get more information about how to start a casino business or how to operate a casino, check out casino management pages on my site and sign up to get notifications whenever I share new content.