I'm a procurement manager at a 45-person online casino operator, and I've managed our gaming content budget—roughly $2.4 million annually—for six years. I've negotiated with 20+ game providers, tracked every invoice in our cost system, and built a TCO spreadsheet that our CFO still asks for copies of.
In Q2 2024, we faced a decision that every operator eventually hits: should we build our own games or license from an established provider like Amatic? I compared both paths across three dimensions: infrastructure cost, speed to market, and player economics. Here's what I found—and where I was wrong.
Why This Comparison Matters in 2025
The casino gaming industry has changed faster than most procurement playbooks acknowledge. What was best practice in 2020—heavily custom games, complex integrations, 12-month launch cycles—doesn't cover it anymore. Players expect new titles monthly, and they expect to try them for free before depositing real money. That reality shapes everything downstream.
Here's the framework I used. Path A is in-house game development: hiring designers, artists, engineers, and game mathematicians to build original titles. Path B is licensing from a provider like Amatic, whose catalog includes games such as Billyonaire Casino Amatic and Wolf Casino Amatic. My job was to figure out which path delivers more value per dollar over a five-year horizon.
The lowest quoted price is rarely the lowest total cost. That's true in every vendor negotiation, and it's especially true when comparing software builds against licensing agreements.
Dimension 1: Infrastructure Cost—The Full Picture
I'll start with the numbers that matter most to my role.
Building in-house: one slot title requires a game designer, a 2D/3D artist, a backend engineer, a QA engineer, and ideally a game mathematician who understands volatility and RTP. Depending on your market, that's $350,000–$500,000 in annual payroll for a single game in development. Then you add certification: GLI testing alone ran us between $18,000 and $41,000 per title across our filings. Maybe $24,000 on average—I'd have to pull the invoices to be exact.
Licensing from Amatic: after comparing quotes from multiple providers in Q3 2024, we signed a multi-year agreement for a flat annual fee plus a small revenue share. Integration cost was the real variable. That "free setup" offer from another vendor actually cost us $8,000 in custom API work—or rather, $8,000 plus a three-week delay when their APIs didn't match our stack. Amatic's integration was boringly straightforward, which is exactly what I want in a vendor. One communication failure worth mentioning: we told a provider we wanted "flexible terms," they heard "flat-rate access to everything," and we paid 22% over the usage-based model we needed. Be painfully specific in your RFP.
The five-year TCO difference is dramatic. Building ten original titles in-house would cost us $4 million+ in development and maintenance, before accounting for games that fail to find an audience. Licensing the same five-year span gave us access to a 300+ game catalog, including proven titles like Billyonaire Casino Amatic. The spreadsheet made the decision for us.
Dimension 2: Speed to Market—16 Months vs. 11 Days
Timelines are where the comparison stops being close.
Our one in-house project—a single original slot—was projected at 16 months from concept to certified launch. That's a realistic estimate, not a worst-case one. Game math design, asset production, QA, certification—each step has its own timeline, and they don't overlap as much as people assume.
When we signed with Amatic, we had Billyonaire Casino Amatic and Wolf Casino Amatic live in 11 days. Not 11 business days—11 days total, or rather, 11 days from contract signature to production launch. Amatic's titles already meet required standards, so we skipped months of certification work. That's a version of speed in-house development can't replicate.
Here's how I explained it to our CFO: launching 15 months earlier doesn't just mean we start earning sooner. It means we collect 15 months of player data and feedback before our in-house alternative would've produced a single title. Speed isn't a feature in this business. It's the whole game.
Dimension 3: Player Economics—Where My Assumptions Were Wrong
Everything I'd read said custom, exclusive games outperform licensed titles. Conventional wisdom holds that uniqueness builds loyalty. My experience with 200+ orders and six years of player metrics suggests otherwise.
We ran a three-month test starting January 2025. We compared our custom-built game—the one that cost $1.2 million and took 16 months—against two Amatic titles, Billyonaire Casino Amatic and Wolf Casino Amatic. The custom game had slightly better day-one retention. But the Amatic games won on 30-day return rate and, more importantly, on average playtime per session. Players came back more often and stayed longer.
I think the free demo mode explains a big part. Amatic's games are available for free play before a player commits real money, lowering the barrier to entry. Players who tested Wolf Casino Amatic in demo mode for 10 minutes were about 23% more likely to deposit within a week. That number comes from our internal dashboard—give or take a couple of points—but the trend stayed consistent across all three months.
And a lesson nobody budgets for: don't assume your players want a hardcore gaming setup. In 2023, we bought high-end gamer headsets and gaming desktop PCs for a live-casino initiative. We were wrong. Most of our players are on mid-range phones or older laptops—no headset, no RGB, just a browser and a few free minutes. A game designed for a gaming headset PC crowd would've missed our actual audience entirely. We resold those headsets at a loss. (Note to self: never assume your players share your hardware preferences.)
The Quiet Shift: From Bridge Tables to Digital Slots
Something happened in March 2024 that reframed how I think about this industry. One of our new support agents asked me, "how do you play bridge card game?" A land-based client had referenced bridge in an email, and our internal documentation had nothing on it. I pulled up a bridge rules page, realized I hadn't thought about bridge in years, and looked around: our catalog was 90% slots, our training manual had zero table-game sections, and our roadmap didn't include a single card game. The industry had shifted so quietly that nobody noticed the exact moment.
You could argue table games are timeless, and you'd be right—bridge still has millions of players. But as a budget question, the shift changes where every dollar goes. We no longer spend on dealer training or physical table maintenance. We train support staff on Amatic's game mechanics, RTP ranges, and responsible gambling tools. The fundamentals haven't changed. The execution has.
What I'd Do in Your Situation
Given the same budget, team size, and CFO pressure, here's what I'd recommend:
- New operator or second brand: license first. Get Amatic's games live in weeks, not years. Build your edge in acquisition and retention, not in a game studio.
- Established operator with a loyal base: negotiate a hybrid. Use licensed games like Billyonaire Casino Amatic and Wolf Casino Amatic for volume, and invest in custom content only where you've identified a specific gap your players are asking for.
- Building a niche offering, like live table games: in-house or specialized providers make sense. Budget for a three-year runway and be honest about the risk.
To be fair, in-house development has its place. Some operators do it exceptionally well, and their engagement numbers show it. But for most operators, most of the time, licensing from a provider like Amatic is the lower-risk, higher-ROI path.
The industry is evolving. The question isn't whether you're building games—it's whether you're building a business that can adapt. For us, licensing was the right call at the right scale. If your numbers point the same way, don't let the allure of building your own studio distract you from what the math says.
Jane Smith
I’m Jane Smith, a senior content writer with over 15 years of experience in the packaging and printing industry. I specialize in writing about the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in packaging design, sustainability, and printing techniques. My goal is to help businesses understand complex printing processes and design solutions that enhance both product packaging and brand visibility.