What are white label casino sites?

Before looking at what a white label casino site is, let’s take a look at what a casino site is. Although the experience a player has should be simple and easy, there is a huge amount of work required to create that experience.

The site the player interacts with will have needed designing, making it attractive as well as easy to use. Underneath that will be a series of software components that need to work together reliably, from the individual games to the account management.

As well as the software infrastructure that the site runs on there will be some hardware, somewhere in the world, on which the software is running. This will need to be reliable and secure. There will also need to be secure links managed, at the very least it needs to have a good connection to the internet and a secure connection with the site's payment providers, so people can play, pay and collect winnings.

All of this will require staff, not just to run the site, but also to handle customer support. And when all of this is done, there is still the significant task of getting and keeping the site licensed and meeting all its regulatory requirements.

Running an online casino is not just complicated, it’s also expensive.

Enter white label solutions

In short a white label casino is an online casino site without the branding.

The history of white labels long pre-dates casino sites. The name comes, literally, from the white label that would come on the manufacturer’s packaging for the retailer to add their details. In more recent times the labelling has been extended to the product, many retailers have their own product lines that are, except for the branding, identical. Perhaps the best-known use of white label products are the various ranges of high street electrical retailers who all had their own ‘exclusive’ Japanese-sounding product lines.

White label casino sites are just another incarnation of this practice. White label sites will be run on behalf of individual brands. The white label provider will offer various packages and customisation offers allowing a quick and easy way for a brand to have a casino offer without the considerable effort required to run an actual casino site.

This allows brands that are not commonly associated with gambling to have their own casino. The site design will feature their logo, and it is only when someone reads the small print at the bottom of the screen that they will notice the site is actually operated by someone else on the brand’s behalf.

What types of white label are there?

White label casinos actually cover a range of different offers for brands.

A true white label site is the one closest to the original white labels on packaging. The white label will provide the site and the brand owner will provide the graphics to create the site identity. This is often a reason why, other than graphics, casino sites can feel very similar; they are the same site, just in a different skin.

This is, by far, the easiest option for a brand looking to operate a casino site. There is little work required and it is the lowest risk option, but it lacks flexibility.

White label providers also offer turnkey solutions. These, in essence, are a casino kit. The operating brand will get all the components needed to operate a casino site, but they will be responsible for putting them together. Once they do that, they turn the key and they will have a casino.

Turnkeys are a good solution for those looking to avoid the hard work of getting started, but will leave the brand with the work, and headaches, of running a site. However, they have far more control over their site than they would get if operating as a pure white label.

Finally, many white labels will also offer access to specific products or packages. They might, for example, allow independent casino sites to use games operated by the white label.

Again, this creates more work for the operating brand, since they will have to manage the rest of the site alongside the interfaces between their and the white label site. However, it can remove some headaches, for example the licensing and testing of those games will be the responsibility of the white label site that operate them.

What does a brand get a from a white label?

Buying a white label casino site really does get a whole casino site.

On the site itself only the graphical identify will belong to the brand. The rest will be part of the white label operation. There will be varying options of customisation, but the basic platform will be the white label’s as will the gaming content, which, again, may be customised between customers.

The other elements of the casino site will also be managed by the white label operator. The white label will provide customer support, likely shared with the other sites they operate, since the queries they handle are likely to be the same. The payment infrastructure will also be managed by them. And perhaps most importantly the licensing and risk management will fall to the white label.

Generally, the brand will have little to do with the operational management of a white label site. They will have some analytical and account management functions, but these will largely be for information and marketing purposes.

Perhaps the biggest role that the brand will have is in customer recruitment and retention. This is one of the reasons that the best-known brands operating white label casinos are media brands, for example newspapers, who can use the platform they have in their main business to promote their casino brand.

How are white labels are set up?

Predictably one of the benefits of a white label casino is that they can be set up quickly and easily. After all, in almost all cases the casino is already running, just not with the branding required.

A brand looking to start a casino from scratch can expect to be able to launch their new white label site within months or even weeks of starting the process. This timeframe will mainly be dictated by the level of customisation they will require, since other aspects that might be time-consuming, such as licensing or negotiating a payment provider, will have already been done as part of the white label providers other casino sites.

What do white label casinos cost?

The costs of setting up a white label casino can vary enormously, with factors like customisation, game choice and size factoring in. Most will charge a set-up fee, usually in the tens of thousands, and then operate a revenue share once the casino site is up and running, a 15:85 split between white label and brand is fairly typical.

While this might be expensive, it usually represents very good value when compared to establishing a site from scratch. The savings are especially good on the set-up costs, where a white label set-up fee will probably be less than the cost of a licensing application for a totally new site. The value the brand obtains from a revenue share will depend on the casino’s size and turnover. However, given the ongoing costs of running an online casino site it’s likely that most brands which have opted for a white label offer could not justify creating and managing their own site.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of white label sites?

For a brand, there are some clear advantages to a white label site. They are incredibly quick and easy to set up. A brand can be operating a casino within months if they use a white label option, whereas they could be easily take more than a year to start a casino from nothing.

It also means they can launch into a pre-built network allowing them to link into other games and not be reliant on rapidly developing their own customer base. A white label will remove most of the risk and provide a revenue stream that they would probably not be able to access any other way.

However, there are some disadvantages. Biggest of all is the lack of flexibility and, potentially, the choice of games. While it’s likely their choice of white label met their needs at launch, a brand might find that as time passes the options they can offer are limiting, but they are unable to do anything unless the white label changes.

For the player white labels are almost entirely good news. By increasing the range of casinos on offer they help make the market bigger by attracting more players which in turn, improves the overall online casino offer. While they might find game choice an issue, players are not tied to a particular provider. Above all, it means that they can play on a platform that is tried and tested. They can join a new, white label, casino without having to worry that it’s not an established casino and just enjoy the latest brand to have an online casino.