Build vs. buy: should operators develop their own casino
Every established gambling operator eventually faces the build-or-buy question - and per Steven Valentine, chief commercial officer at Comtrade Gaming, the honest answer is that both sides of the casino platform decision come with an expiry date. His explanation to iGamingBusiness, published October 20, 2026, walks through why operators keep swinging between building and buying casino platforms.
The build-or-buy platform cycle that repeats every 8-15 years
"It is a cyclical process at an operator level," Valentine says. Start-ups almost always begin on third-party vendors to gain a foothold. Established operators with deep pockets may then decide to develop their own platform - often because they feel the provider is holding them back or not delivering what they want. Over time, as expertise leaves the business, the in-house platform ages and starts to fall down, and the operator goes back to market. The whole loop typically runs eight to 15 years, but "that story does seem to repeat itself many times." The cycle explains a pattern readers see in our own operator coverage, where casino platforms that stay competitive keep reinvesting - as with the way bet365 keeps shipping new versions of its Bet Track tools rather than treating its homegrown stack as finished.
The scale threshold that makes building possible
Scale is the starting point: an operator generating less than £250 million in GGR per year is unlikely to consider building, while past that threshold owning your technology becomes a distinct possibility - "because you have the resources, but that has to be backed by a long-term commitment to it." The strategic questions Valentine puts to operators cut through the debate: is the current technology holding the gaming business back? Would building in-house allow faster movement, or was the problem simply the wrong vendor in the first place? It is always, he says, about the best way for the casino operator to execute its business strategy.
The price of control is paid every year
Building, however, comes with the part most operators underestimate: the total cost of ownership beyond launch. Budgets and timescales are "often extremely optimistic" - building an iGaming platform is not a small software project but a huge enterprise-level piece of software, with 24/7 technical support for casino operators as mandatory overhead from day one. Crucially, the investment does not taper after launch: "Typically, the investment in the launch is the same year after year after year. There is no huge ramp-up and then huge ramp-down. The size of team it takes to build an iGaming platform for an individual operator is the same size of team it takes to maintain it and continue to build it." Over time the cost of ownership probably increases, because the complexities of what you build keep growing, and there is always a cost of transferring knowledge internally as people move. His closing challenge is the mindset one: "Are you prepared to effectively become a tech company? It is very difficult from a mindset perspective." Comtrade itself launched its first casino gaming software project in 2001 and is headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where Valentine has served in the gaming software business since 2010.
Key takeaways
The practical takeaway: build-vs-buy is not a fork in the road but a cycle for casino platform owners - vendor, in-house, aging stack, market again - typically eight to 15 years per lap. Example of the gatekeeper number: below £250 million GGR, the buy path usually suits a smaller casino operator building nothing in-house; above it, control is affordable only with a permanent team, not a launch project. Caveat worth repeating: the maintenance team is the build team, so the yearly cost of ownership is roughly flat from day one.
Frequently asked questions
When should an operator build its own casino platform? When scale clears roughly £250 million in annual GGR, the current vendor is verifiably holding the strategy back, and leadership accepts the long-term commitment - the three combined conditions Valentine sets out.
What surprises operators about in-house platform costs? That launch-level investment recurs: the team that builds the platform is the same size as the team that must maintain and keep building it, with 24/7 casino platform support as permanent overhead - so the true cost runs flat or rising, not tapering.
What is the build-buy cycle length? Eight to 15 years, from vendor start-up to in-house build to aging technology and back to the market - a pattern Valentine says repeats across the industry.
Industry Context and Analysis
Industry analysis of the framework, and why it matters: platform decisions decide who owns the product roadmap of an operator, and the cyclical answer suggests neither pure control nor pure outsourcing is a stable equilibrium - the industry's steady state is movement between the two, and budget planning should assume a transition, not an endpoint.
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Sources and further reading
- Primary source: igamingbusiness.com
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