Who this is for
An operator with a licence in hand, or close to one, who wants full ownership of the players, the margin and the regulator relationship rather than a share of it. If you do not yet hold a licence and want to test a market with limited capital first, start with white label and migrate once volume justifies it.
What turnkey covers
Everything between the licence and the first deposit. Platform and player account management, game aggregation, bonus engine, cashier and payment orchestration, back office and regulator reporting, front end, hosting in the jurisdiction the licence requires, and the certification of the platform and RNG by an approved test lab where the licence demands it. Market ranges for this model in 2026 run from USD 35,000 to 150,000 and up in setup and 2% to 5% of GGR, or a fixed licence fee instead of revenue share. Time to live is up to four months when certifications already exist for the target jurisdiction and longer when the licence itself is still being applied for.
What only turnkey gives you
- Your merchant accounts. Acquiring under your own MCC 7995 accounts means your processing history, your rates and your relationship with the acquirer. Our payment gateway orchestrates across them.
- Your regulator relationship. On an Isle of Man or Finnish licence the regulator reads your reports and audits your controls. That is a burden, and it is also the asset a bank or a buyer values.
- Your margin. A brand at €500,000 monthly GGR pays €25,000 a month at 5% and up to €75,000 at 15%. The difference funds a marketing team.
- Your player data. Entirely yours, with no export negotiation on exit because there is no licence holder standing between you and the database.
What certification actually involves
Two of the licences we build for make an approved body inspect the platform before you may take a bet: the Isle of Man and Finland. Read the middle column as the work that must already be finished before the assessment can start, because that is what sets the launch date.
| Licence | Who assesses what | What must exist before it starts | Published timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isle of Man | The Gambling Supervision Commission assesses the operator and the system under OGRA 2001 and the AML/CFT Code 2019 | Substantive presence on the island: a Manx company, Isle of Man bank accounts, and the resident people and fund protections listed further down this page. The GSC declines applications that look like shell presence. | 10 to 12 weeks after a complete application and the £5,250 fee |
| Finland, from July 2027 | An approved body assesses the RNG and systems; the National Police Board assesses the applicant | The application in Finnish or Swedish, €29,000 non-refundable, an EEA representative if you are not established in the EEA. The build must already do strong electronic ID, residents-only geo-fencing, deposit limits before play, central self-exclusion, no crypto and retention-only bonuses at a 5× wagering cap. | About six months of processing, per the National Police Board in June 2026 |
| Tobique | No platform assessment. An RNG certificate is one document in the pack | An MLRO, fund segregation, a contracted ADR provider, infrastructure disclosure, responsible-gaming tools | 2 to 3 weeks after pre-approval, up to 8 weeks |
| Anjouan | No platform assessment | Key Person Authorisation, approved domains, certified corporate documents to UBO level | 2 to 8 weeks, per the firms that file them; the regulator publishes no figure |
The second column is what changes a plan. The Isle of Man and Finland assess a working platform, so the build must be substantially complete before the clock starts. Anjouan and Tobique assess documents, which is why they are measured in weeks.
A realistic month-by-month schedule
This is a build on a licence that has not yet been granted. Month 0 is the scoping call. The right-hand column is what actually consumes the month, which is rarely the engineering.
| Month | What happens | What eats the time |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Scoping: markets, licence, verticals, game mix, payment methods, languages, ending in the fixed-scope statement. | Settling the market list. Changing it later reopens the certification scope. |
| 1 | Corporate structure and licence filing start. Platform configuration begins alongside them. | Certified corporate documents to UBO level and source-of-funds evidence. On the Isle of Man, finding the resident directors and the Designated Official. |
| 2–3 | Studio and PSP integrations, front end, back-office roles, bonus rule sets per market. | Merchant onboarding. MCC 7995 acquiring takes months and asks for processing history a new brand does not have. |
| 3–4 | Certification where the licence requires it, then an end-to-end test of every payment method in every currency. | The test lab's queue and its findings. A first-attempt failure typically adds two to four weeks. |
| 4 | Launch, 30 days of hypercare, handover with runbooks. | Nothing, if the licence is in hand. Everything, if it is not. |
Four months is the figure for a build on a licence that already exists. Where it does not, add the licence's own clock: two to eight weeks on Anjouan or Tobique, 10 to 12 weeks on the Isle of Man, about six months in Finland. In Finland the application outlasts the build, so budget for a finished platform standing idle and for the staff already hired to run it.
Delivery in five stages
- Scoping. Markets, licence, verticals, game mix, payment methods, languages. Output: a fixed-scope statement with the launch date.
- Licence and corporate. If the licence is not in hand, the licensing team runs it in parallel; the platform's technical annexes go into the application.
- Build and integration. Platform configuration, studio and PSP integrations, front end, back office roles.
- Certification and test. RNG and platform certification where the licence requires it, which for a casino means the Isle of Man and Finland; end-to-end test of every payment method in every currency; load test.
- Launch and hypercare. Go-live with the team on call for the first 30 days; handover to your operations with runbooks.
Licence-specific builds we have configured
| Licence | What the build changes |
|---|---|
| Isle of Man | Player registration on island servers, player-funds protection reporting, OGRA return format, resident Designated Official access to the back office |
| Finland (from July 2027) | Strong electronic ID, resident-only geo-fence, mandatory limits before play, bonus engine locked to retention with 5× cap, self-exclusion register, no crypto |
| Tobique | Infrastructure disclosure, bi-weekly encrypted backup to the Commission's provider, KYC before €2,000 wagered, footer shield and policy links |
| Anjouan | Quarterly compliance report, restricted-country geo-block, crypto cashier default |
What your own team now covers
A white label absorbed these obligations. On your own licence they are yours, and most are calendar commitments rather than one-off tasks. Read the cadence column first: it decides whether a line needs a person or a process.
| Obligation | Which licence sets it | Cadence |
|---|---|---|
| AML programme with a named MLRO | Isle of Man under the AML/CFT Act 2018 and Code 2019; also Tobique, Tuvalu and Finland | Continuous |
| Player-account submissions and encrypted backup to the Commission's provider | Tobique | Bi-weekly, both |
| Compliance report | Tobique monthly; Anjouan quarterly, with Q1 2026 due on 30 April 2026 | Monthly or quarterly |
| Player funds held in a trust, guarantee or client account, and reported | Isle of Man | Continuous |
| KYC before a threshold rather than at signup | Tobique within 30 days of first deposit, before €2,000 is wagered and before any payout; Tuvalu before payout or above USD 10,000 of deposits | Per player |
| Duty and tax returns | Isle of Man duty at 1.5% of GGY to £20m, 0.5% to £40m, 0.1% above; Finland 22% of GGR plus a supervision fee from €4,000 to €434,000 by size | Per return |
| A resident Designated Official with back-office access | Isle of Man | A hire, not a task |
| Dispute resolution through a contracted provider | Tobique | On demand |
Two rows are hiring decisions, not software ones: the MLRO and, on the Isle of Man, the Designated Official and the two resident directors. Price them before you compare a revenue share against a licence fee. They are the part of turnkey no platform absorbs.
Frequently asked
Can I bring my own front end?
Yes. Build it against the casino API and use our platform for wallet, games, bonuses and compliance. Many operators launch on our template and replace it in year two.
Who hosts?
Where the licence dictates, there; otherwise in a cloud region close to the players. The Isle of Man requires player registration on island servers; Anjouan and Tobique impose no server rule. Cyprus requires a mirrored server in Cyprus, but its Class B licence covers betting only, so it never applies to a casino build.
Fixed fee or revenue share?
Either. Revenue share suits a launch with uncertain volume; a fixed fee suits an operator with a track record who wants the upside. We quote both.
Does the platform itself need a licence?
In two places on this site, yes. Anjouan has required every supplier to hold a B2B recognition certificate since 1 July 2025, at €9,500 a year, so a studio without one cannot serve your brand whatever it promises. Finland makes a gambling software licence mandatory from 1 July 2028, with applications opening on 1 July 2027.
What does the licence cost every year, after the setup fee?
Anjouan is €17,828 a year, plus €500 per extra domain. Tobique is about €36,000 in year one, €19,875 to renew, plus roughly €7,000 a year for compliance. The Isle of Man is £36,750 a year plus duty from 1.5% of GGY. Finland is €29,000 to apply, then a supervision fee of €4,000 to €434,000 by size and 22% of GGR in tax. A revenue-share quote does not include any of it.
What if the platform fails certification on the first attempt?
The test lab's findings go straight into the build; a first-attempt failure typically adds two to four weeks, not a restart, because the certification runs against the same fixed-scope statement from stage one rather than a moving target.