date 20 December 2021 update Upd: 18 March 2024 reading time 6 min views 2023 views

Every day we meet new potential customers who have asked for online casino software for sale at a dozen companies. Why does it happen more and more often?

Original text published: 23.01.2017
Text updated: 20.12.2021

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According to H2 Gambling Capital, the market share of iGaming is increasing firmly and is expected to reach 33.6% of Europe’s gross gaming revenue by 2025. In 2020, 65.3% the share of iGaming was expected to momentarily increase to 34.7% of total gross gaming revenue due to the COVID-related closures of brick-and-mortar casinos. 

When searching to know the gaming platform or poker room software price, our potential operators receive replies with a price range from “free on condition” to tens of thousand dollars for a basic engine. If they are new to the industry, most of them are somewhat confused and ask: “Why does your software cost so?”

Here’s the answer.

Software Vendor Pricing Models

There are several business models that gambling website software vendors successfully use, and that is the first thing that affects the price.

  1. Free or very low-cost basic functionality and paid options.

It is a very popular scheme to test the target market: you get a very cheap or free casino software package with extremely limited functionality. Most of these packages limit your players, active tables and tournaments number, have only one or two game types available and nearly no customisation and personalisation options. If you want more, you’ll need to buy an enhanced package.

  1. Software rent or any model with royalty fees.

This scheme has a relatively low entrance fee (setup or joining payment), sometimes extremely low, but after that, you will regularly pay to the software vendor. Once you stop doing it, you are losing control. Once you try to hide any information from your vendor, you are losing control. To a certain degree, you depend on your vendor though your business runs all by itself.

  1. Royalty free purchase.

You get the software, the vendor gets the money, that’s all. From the installation and integration, you are free to use your purchase in your business without any further payments and obligations (except doing things that are prohibited by your licence like reselling or distributing). Some offer source code purchase; in that case you don’t have to ask a vendor for the new features and updates. You are able to implement many of them with your own team.

So the more freedom you get from the business model, the more you have to pay.

What Are The Vendor’s Costs?

The second thing that affects all gaming software packages is the amount of money the vendor invests in the product.

  1. Development

Obvious costs: the more work a vendor has put in the software, the more it costs. Various options, different types of games, application choice – every feature you want to have has a cost. More development costs usually also mean better testing and fewer bugs.

  1. Maintenance and Support

The main reason why a gaming software piece cannot cost less over time (mostly, it costs even more). The work on a good software package is never over: new operational systems, security issues, gambling commission requirements, market trends, and more arise all the time. If the vendor stops the development, the product becomes unstable, insecure and dies quickly.

  1. Protection of Your Interests

The company that operates officially, has a brand, a name and an expertise (these assets are the costs!) can provide you with a more sustainable business product in a long-term perspective. You can be sure in getting all needed updates and fixes, security of your software and your information.

Conclusion

When you are getting any software, you are paying not only for a piece of code. You are paying for:

  • The freedom to use the product you buy.
  • The expertise and the experience that a vendor has in gaming software development that leads to fewer bugs and better UX.
  • The ability to get security updates, versions for the newest operational systems and new gaming features. It’s crucially important for a long-term project!
  • Your project security.

When looking for an online poker software for sale you may want to identify which parameters are the least important for your project. If you do not want to sacrifice any, you should be ready to buy a rather expensive product. Good news: better software also tends to have better ROI.