Last updated: 11 October 2026
You want to launch a betting site, and every guide you find is written by a vendor that wants to sell you its platform. They tell you to “get a licence” without saying which one, quote budgets that leave out marketing and the cash you need to pay winners, and rarely mention that a casino and a sportsbook have very different economics.
This guide is for founders, operators and affiliates planning their first real-money brand. It covers the three decisions that shape everything else (what you sell, where you sell it and whose licence you run on), the licence fees regulators actually publish, a first-year budget, and how much of every 100 units of gross gaming revenue (GGR) you keep in different markets.
The short answer
To start a betting site you choose a product (sportsbook, online casino or both), pick the markets you will accept players from, get the licence those markets require or launch under a provider’s licence through a white label, then add a platform, payments, KYC and responsible gambling tools before you spend on marketing.
A lean launch on a Curaçao licence realistically needs about €480,000 to €1.5 million in first-year capital once you count staff, marketing and a cash reserve. Software is not the expensive part. The figure of “$5,000 to $10,000” still quoted on one top-ranking sportsbook guide, and the “$20,000 to $400,000” development range Google shows for betting apps, only cover the technology.
Step 1: Decide what you are selling
“Betting site” covers three different businesses. Pick one before you talk to any vendor, because it changes your licence, your suppliers and your margin.
| Sportsbook | Online casino | Hybrid (both) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What players bet on | Sports and events at fixed odds | Slots, table games, live dealer | Both, one wallet |
| Key suppliers | Odds and data feed, trading and risk management | Game studios, usually through an aggregator | Both stacks on one player account system |
| How revenue behaves | Swings with results; a bad weekend can turn GGR negative | Steadier, because the house edge plays out over many spins | Casino smooths sportsbook swings |
| Biggest variable cost | Data, trading and betting duty | Game content fees (a share of casino GGR) and gaming duty | Both |
| Licensing | Betting licence or category | Casino licence or category | Often two licences or categories (one in Curaçao) |
A sportsbook is a business that takes bets on sporting events and sets the odds, earning a margin built into those odds. If that is your plan, our dedicated guide on how to start a sportsbook goes deeper on odds feeds, trading and sportsbook margins. This page covers the wider decision, including casino and hybrid sites.
Most offshore brands launch as hybrids, because casino revenue is steadier and players who come for football often stay for slots. In markets that license betting and casino separately, a hybrid costs more to license and is sometimes not possible at all: Tennessee, for example, allows online sports betting but not online casino.
Step 2: Pick your markets, then let them pick your licence
The licence follows your players. It does not matter where your company or servers are. If a country licenses online gambling locally, you need that country’s licence to take its players legally.
- United Kingdom: a Gambling Commission licence for each product. Casino and betting are separate operating licences.
- Most of Europe and Ontario: local licences. An offshore licence gives you no access.
- United States: state-by-state licences, often requiring a casino or tribal partner. Online casino is live in only seven states (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island). Maine legalised it in 2026, with launch not expected before 2027.
- Markets without local licensing: this is where Curaçao, Anjouan and similar licences are used. Check each target country’s position before you assume it is open; our guide on whether offshore betting is legal explains how this works country by country.
Can you legally start your own betting site?
Yes, if you hold the licence each of your target markets requires and you block players from markets you are not licensed for. What you cannot do legally is run an unlicensed site, or take players from a market that requires a local licence using an offshore one. In the US that means a state licence; no federal or offshore shortcut exists.
Step 3: Choose your licence route (with 2026 fees)
These are the published regulator fees for the routes most new operators consider. They are the smallest part of your budget, but they are the numbers most guides get wrong.
| Route | Covers | Application fee | Annual fee | Gambling tax |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Curaçao (CGA) B2C | Casino and sportsbook under one licence | €4,592 | €47,450 | No GGR-based duty in the fee schedule |
| Malta (MGA) B2C | Type 1 (casino) and Type 2 (betting) are separate licence types | €5,000 | €25,000, plus a compliance contribution: casino €15,000 to €375,000; betting €25,000 to €600,000 | 5% gaming tax on revenue from players in Malta |
| UK (UKGC) remote casino, smallest band | Casino only | £8,185 | £7,000 (first year at 75%: £5,250) | Remote Gaming Duty 40% from April 2026 |
| UK (UKGC) remote betting, smallest band | Betting only | £6,535 | £5,937 (first year at 75%: £4,453) | 15% now; 25% on remote betting from April 2027 (UK horseracing excluded) |
| White label on a provider’s licence | Whatever the provider’s licence covers | No licence fee to you; priced into a setup fee and revenue share | Depends on the licence | |
Sources: Curaçao fees from the CGA’s published schedule, as covered in our Curaçao gaming licence guide; Malta from the MGA licence fees and taxation guidance note; UK licence fees from the government’s fee schedule effective 1 October 2026; UK duty rates from HMRC’s gambling duty changes.
Three details that change real costs:
- A UK hybrid needs two licences. In the smallest band, casino plus betting comes to £14,720 in application fees and £9,703 in first-year annual fees, plus £463 for each Personal Management Licence.
- Malta gives start-ups breathing room. The minimum compliance contribution isn’t due until a full licence period has passed, and qualifying start-ups get a 12-month moratorium. Our MGA licence guide models the first two years.
- The old Curaçao sub-licence is gone. Pages still quoting Curaçao at “$25,000 to $35,000” describe the master-licence system that ended in 2024 and 2025. Under the current law you hold a direct licence from the Curaçao Gaming Authority, and from 24 December 2026 licensees may only buy critical services from CGA-registered suppliers.
Running on someone else’s licence
A white label lets you launch under a provider’s licence, which is why it is the fastest route. The trade-off is control: if that licence is suspended, your brand goes down with it, and you need the provider’s licence number and register entry in writing. In Great Britain the model is far narrower. The Gambling Commission has said that white label partners without a licence who transact with consumers directly would be committing an offence, so the licensee carries all the compliance risk and prices it in.
Step 4: Choose a platform model
Your platform is the software that runs player accounts, the wallet, games or odds, bonuses and the back office. You can rent it, license it or build it.
| Model | Whose licence | Typical upfront cost | Ongoing cost | Time to launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White label | Provider’s | About €15,000 to €60,000 | 10% to 30% of GGR, sometimes plus a monthly fee | About 1 to 8 weeks |
| Turnkey | Yours | About €35,000 to €150,000, plus your licence | A lower revenue share (often 2% to 5% of GGR) or a flat monthly fee | Weeks for the tech, months for the licence |
| Custom build | Yours | Often €250,000 to €1 million or more | Your own engineering team | A year or more |
Ranges are vendor-published marketing figures (SOFTSWISS, SoftGamings, GR8 Tech and others), not quotes. Treat them as anchors for negotiation.
The rule of thumb: white label is cheapest at low volume, and turnkey wins once the revenue share you hand over each month is bigger than the fixed costs of holding your own licence. On typical assumptions that crossover sits somewhere around €30,000 to €50,000 of monthly GGR. For a vendor-by-vendor approach, read how new operators choose an iGaming platform provider, and if you’re building a casino, our explainer on online casino software and its costs breaks down each layer of the stack.
Step 5: Add the product layer
The platform is the shell. What fills it depends on your product.
- Casino: games come from studios, usually connected through one aggregator integration. Studios charge a share of the GGR their games generate, so content is a variable cost that grows with you. Compare options in our list of casino game aggregators.
- Sportsbook: you need an odds and data feed, results for settlement, and a trading service or in-house traders to manage liability. Our comparison of odds APIs covers coverage and pricing.
- Both: one player account and wallet across products. That is the job of the player account management (PAM) system, explained in what a PAM is.
Step 6: Set up payments, KYC and responsible gambling
Banks treat gambling as high risk, and your licence largely decides which payment providers will work with you. A Malta or UK licence opens far more doors than an offshore one. Plan for at least two payment providers, so one frozen account doesn’t stop withdrawals, plus identity checks at sign-up, anti-money laundering monitoring, and tools such as deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion. Every serious licence requires them and checks them in audits.
Start your shortlists with the iGaming payment providers and KYC providers compared on this site.
How much does it cost to start a betting site?
Here is a first-year budget for a lean, turnkey-style launch on your own Curaçao licence, comparing a casino with a sportsbook. Only the licence line is a published figure; every other line is an assumption you should replace with real quotes.
| Cost line (year one) | Online casino (€) | Sportsbook (€) |
|---|---|---|
| Curaçao licence: application plus annual fees | 52,042 | 52,042 |
| Local company, director, legal and policies | 25,000 to 60,000 | 25,000 to 60,000 |
| Platform setup (lean deal; premium turnkey packages run higher) | 10,000 to 50,000 | 10,000 to 50,000 |
| Platform running fees, 12 months | 36,000 to 120,000 | 36,000 to 120,000 |
| Odds, data and trading, 12 months | Not needed | 24,000 to 96,000 |
| KYC, fraud and AML tools | 10,000 to 40,000 | 10,000 to 40,000 |
| Core team (4 to 6 people) | 150,000 to 350,000 | 150,000 to 350,000 |
| Marketing and player acquisition | 150,000 to 500,000 | 150,000 to 500,000 |
| Cash reserve to pay winners (held, not spent) | 50,000 to 150,000 | 100,000 to 250,000 |
| Total capital needed | about 483,000 to 1.32 million | about 557,000 to 1.52 million |
A hybrid sits at or slightly above the sportsbook figure, since it carries both supplier stacks. A white label cuts the licence, company and setup lines but replaces them with a higher revenue share, which the next section shows can matter more. Game content fees aren’t in this table because they are a share of revenue, not a fixed cost.
What about the cost of a betting app?
Google’s answer for “how much to start a betting app” quotes development studios at $20,000 to $400,000 and more. That is the cost of building the app, not of starting the business. Most white label and turnkey platforms include mobile web and often native or hybrid apps, so a first-time operator rarely needs a separate build. Apple and Google also only allow real-money gambling apps in places where you hold the required licence.
How much of every 100 GGR you actually keep
This is where the product and market decision shows up. GGR is stakes minus winnings. It is not profit. The table compares a white label casino and sportsbook in the UK and in Curaçao, using illustrative variable costs. The duty rates are published; every other line is an assumption.
| Per 100 units of GGR | UK casino (from April 2026) | UK sportsbook (from April 2027) | Curaçao casino | Curaçao sportsbook |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gambling duty | -40 | -25 | 0 | 0 |
| White label revenue share (15%) | -15 | -15 | -15 | -15 |
| Game content fees | -12 | 0 | -12 | 0 |
| Odds, data and trading | 0 | -4 | 0 | -4 |
| Payments | -6 | -6 | -6 | -6 |
| KYC and fraud | -2 | -2 | -2 | -2 |
| Affiliates and paid acquisition | -20 | -20 | -20 | -20 |
| Left to cover fixed costs | 5 | 28 | 45 | 53 |
Three things follow:
- A new UK casino on a white label barely works. With Remote Gaming Duty at 40%, a 15% revenue share and normal content and acquisition costs leave about 5 units per 100 GGR. Bonuses, not shown here, would push it negative.
- Tax decides the platform model. In a high-duty market, every percentage point of revenue share hurts more, so a turnkey or flat-fee deal makes sense at lower volume than it does offshore.
- Offshore margins look better on paper, but cost you elsewhere. Curaçao keeps more of each 100, but payment access is harder, chargebacks and fraud run higher, and you can only take players from markets without local licensing.
To find your break-even, divide your fixed annual costs by the units left. If team, licence and fixed platform fees come to €400,000 a year, a Curaçao casino needs roughly €890,000 of annual GGR (€400,000 ÷ 0.45) to break even before bonuses.
Is a betting site a profitable business?
It can be, but the business is high risk in a specific way. Most new brands lose money in year one because acquisition costs come before revenue, and a sportsbook can lose on a single weekend of favourites winning. Profit comes from three things: keeping acquisition cost per player below that player’s lifetime revenue, choosing a market where tax and platform fees leave real margin (see the table above), and retaining players with a CRM programme rather than buying them again each month.
Casino revenue is more predictable than sportsbook revenue, which is why most offshore brands add a casino. Sportsbooks bring in players more cheaply around big events, but they need trading discipline and a cash reserve.
Step 7: Launch timeline
- Weeks 1 to 4: fix your product and target markets, incorporate in your licensing jurisdiction, and shortlist platform providers.
- Months 1 to 6: file your licence application with AML, KYC, responsible gambling and terms policies. Curaçao typically takes four to six months from incorporation; Malta and the UK usually take longer. On a white label, you skip this step and can launch in weeks.
- In parallel: sign the platform contract, integrate games or odds, onboard payment and KYC providers.
- Before launch: test deposits, withdrawals, bet settlement and game rounds end to end, and switch on responsible gambling tools and geo-blocking for markets you aren’t licensed in.
- Launch: start with a narrow product and one or two markets, then expand as your data shows which players stay.
Mistakes that sink new betting sites
- Budgeting the software and not the business. Marketing and staff are usually more than half the first-year spend.
- Picking a licence before a market. A licence that your target players’ country doesn’t recognise is wasted money.
- Signing a revenue share without reading the base. A share of GGR and a share of “net revenue” with provider-defined deductions are very different numbers.
- Forgetting the exit. Confirm you own your domains and player data, and what it costs to migrate.
- Using stale fee tables. UK fees and duty, Curaçao’s regime and US state rules all changed in the last two years.
- Taking players you aren’t licensed for. It risks your licence, your payment accounts and, in some countries, criminal liability.
What this means for you
If you are an operator or founder, decide your product and market first, then model the margin per 100 GGR before you sign with a platform. If you are an affiliate with existing traffic, a white label is the usual first step from commission to operator margin, but check that the provider’s licence actually covers your audience and that the revenue share leaves you more than your current commission.
When you’re ready to shortlist suppliers, browse the platform and white-label directory and the licensing consultants directory.
Regulator fees and tax rates are correct as of 11 October 2026, from the regulators’ published schedules. Platform prices are vendor-published ranges, and budget and margin figures are illustrative assumptions. This guide is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice.
