Who this is for
An operator on its own licence, usually on a turnkey build, who has the platform and the licence but not yet the people to run them seven days a week. The common case is the period after launch, before the in-house team exists or while it is being hired. The other case is an established operator who wants one function off its payroll, typically sportsbook trading or the KYC queue, without replacing the platform.
Managed operations buys hands, not advice. If what you need is a decision about structure, deal terms or which licence to hold, that is what our consulting sessions are for. If you run a white label brand, most of this page is already in your contract: KYC, AML monitoring, regulator reporting and English-language player support are done by the licence holder.
Who should not buy it
- Operators whose licence requires the work to be done by resident staff. The Isle of Man wants a resident Designated Official and two resident directors, and Curaçao's local substance rule applies from 1 April 2027. Outsourced execution can sit behind those people, not replace them.
- Operators who will not give the managed team access to the back office. A support agent who cannot see the bonus history or the KYC status of the player in front of them escalates everything, and you pay twice for every ticket.
- Operators who want to stay outsourced forever without planning the exit. That is a legitimate choice, but then the runbooks, macros and CRM segments built on your platform must be written into the contract as yours.
What you can hand over, and what you still decide
Each function splits into execution, which a managed team does every day, and decisions, which stay with whoever answers to the regulator. Read the third column first: that is the part no provider can take off you, including us.
| Function | What the managed team does | What stays with you |
|---|---|---|
| Player support | Live chat and email in the languages agreed, first-line account, payment and game issues, complaint logging, escalation to the right owner | The complaints policy, the ADR provider where the licence requires one (Tobique does), and the wording of anything that changes a player's balance |
| CRM and retention | Segmentation, the campaign calendar, bonus execution inside the rules you approve, reporting on cohort value and bonus cost | Bonus policy per market. In Finland from July 2027 only retention bonuses with a 5× wagering cap are allowed and no VIP scheme at all. The software side is on the CRM page |
| Sportsbook trading | Market monitoring on the odds feeds, margin settings, liability alerts, suspending markets on incidents, bet review | The risk appetite: maximum liability per event and per player, which sports you offer, and who may override a limit |
| Fraud and verification | The KYC queue, document and liveness checks, bonus-abuse and multi-account review, flagging unusual transactions | Every decision on whether an unusual transaction goes to the authorities. That belongs to your MLRO or compliance officer, not to the team that spotted it |
| Payments operations | Withdrawal approvals inside the limits you set, PSP reconciliation, chargeback responses, dispute-ratio monitoring per merchant account | Withdrawal limits, the merchant accounts, which acquirers you use, and the relationship with each of them |
The fraud row needs the most care. A managed team that reviews alerts and also decides what to report has taken over the MLRO's job in practice, whatever the organisation chart says. Keep the flag and the decision in separate hands, and keep a record that shows they were separate.
What the licence keeps in-house, by jurisdiction
Regulators do not object to outsourcing. They object to the licence holder losing control of what was outsourced. The UK Gambling Commission puts it plainly for white label sites: responsibility for compliance "cannot be transferred to any other party". The licences on this site turn the same principle into named roles.
| Licence | Roles that must be yours | Recurring duty a managed team can prepare but you sign |
|---|---|---|
| Isle of Man | Two locally resident individual directors; a resident Designated Official, or an Operations Manager if the Designated Official cannot live on the island | Quarterly online gambling and AML/CFT returns |
| Curaçao | A compliance officer at management level who can act independently and meets one of the CGA's three qualification routes; a local director who receives invoices and notices | The AML programme, review of internally reported unusual transactions, periodic reporting |
| Tobique | A compliance officer and MLRO; an existing senior manager may hold the role | Player-account submissions every two weeks, monthly compliance change reports, terrorist-activity reports within 24 hours |
| Anjouan | The compliance role under Key Person Authorisation | Quarterly compliance reports and notification of any material change |
| Finland, from July 2027 | A named MLRO under the AML programme | Gambling tax and supervision-fee returns |
The practical rule: the managed team can draft every return and run every queue, but the name on the return and the person who answers the regulator's phone call are yours. If a provider offers to "be your MLRO", ask which licence permits that and get the answer in writing.
Reporting you should receive
A managed operation you cannot see is a risk on your licence. Agree the reporting before the first shift, and agree it per function rather than as one dashboard.
- Daily: an operations log of open escalations, suspended markets, withdrawals held and why, and anything that touched a player's balance by hand.
- Weekly: volumes and backlog per queue, KYC cases opened and closed, fraud cases by type, chargebacks received and answered.
- Monthly: cohort retention and bonus cost per market, trading margin against the risk appetite you set, dispute ratios per merchant account, and the regulator calendar for the next quarter with owners against each date.
- On every incident: what happened, which players were affected, what the team did, and what changes. The technical side of incidents sits with platform support.
We work on your back office and your tools, not a parallel system of ours. The reason is the exit: everything the team produces is already where you need it on the day you take a function back.
Handover, in both directions
Taking a function over starts the way our platform projects end: written runbooks per function, a period of shadowing where your staff and ours work the same queue, and the limits and escalation contacts confirmed in writing before we act alone. Handing it back runs the same steps in reverse, plus three things operators forget to ask for:
- Every support macro, CRM segment, campaign template and trading limit, exported in a format your next team can load.
- Access removed for every managed-team account on the platform, the PSP portals and the KYC provider, with a dated list showing it was done.
- The open-case list at the hand-back date, so no KYC file, complaint or chargeback falls between two teams.
How managed operations fail
- Paid per ticket. A team paid per ticket has no reason to fix the cause of the tickets. Pay per function or per agreed capacity, and review the top ticket reasons monthly.
- Thresholds set for the wrong licence. Tobique requires KYC within 30 days of a first deposit or before €2,000 is wagered, and always before a payout; Tuvalu requires it before a payout or above USD 10,000 of deposits. A team trained on one brand applies its thresholds to the next.
- Trading without a written risk appetite. If the limits live in a trader's head, the first bad weekend shows you what they were.
- Bonus spend blamed for a payment problem. A failed deposit loses the player, and a CRM team without visibility of payment declines will keep increasing offers to fix it.
Questions to put to any provider, including us
- Which functions do you run with your own staff, and which do you subcontract? Name the subcontractors.
- Who on your side can change a player's balance, and how is each change logged?
- Which decisions will you escalate to us rather than take, written per function?
- What do we receive at exit, in which format, and is any of it charged?
- Which licences have you operated under, and how did you handle each one's reporting calendar?
Frequently asked
Can you run operations on a platform you did not build?
Yes, if we get the back-office access the functions need. Support, CRM and payments operations work on most platforms. Trading depends on the sportsbook's risk tools, so we review those before we quote.
Can we hand over one function only?
Yes. Trading and the KYC queue suit it best, because both need specialist staff at hours a small team cannot cover.
Can your team act as our MLRO?
We do not offer that. On Curaçao the CGA wants a designated senior officer at management level who can act independently and meets one of its qualification routes, and the other licences on this site name the role as the licence holder's. We prepare the cases and the returns; your officer decides and signs.
How is managed operations different from consulting?
Consulting decides what to do; managed operations does it every day. Sessions run on a fixed monthly cadence with the consultant. Operations is staffed work, scoped per function and priced on the capacity it needs.
What does it cost?
It is scoped per function, per language and per hours of cover, because a single-market casino and a multi-market sportsbook with live trading need different teams. We put the scope and the price in writing after one call about your markets and volumes.