CPA deals for white label casino brands with Matthew White

Matthew White is the senior editor of NewBettingSites and has his opinion on the pros and cons of white label casino solutions in the market and how he promotes them.

There is no shortage of white label casino solutions on the market. What is your take on this flood of white label casinos and not to confuse the term with the company called White Label Casinos.

There is nothing inherently bad about a white label solution. It reflects the maturation of the online gambling industry in many ways.

In the early days the market was cornered by the bigger operators who could afford to develop their own platforms and employ enough people to keep them running. Over time many functions were outsourced to third-party developers to economise systems. White labels solutions simply take this to the next level where the entire site is developed and run by a third-party and the brand owner is largely in the background.

White label solutions have potentiated many good things for the industry. They reduce the costs for new brands to enter the market and increase competition that helps prevent the big names from monopolising gambling online. They give players more choice and they can help in driving the industry towards new innovations.

Naturally white label casino solutions can also have drawbacks. Lower funding levels mean they are less stable than the more traditional names with their own platforms, which means over half end up failing within a year or so. Many white labels are also effectively clones of other sites and while they might have different colour schemes or focus on different elements in many ways all sites from one white label provider are pretty much the same. There is certainly a disconnect between the brand and the user with white labels that you do not find so much with larger brands that have their own proprietary systems.

As time has progressed and white labels have flooded the market this has increased aspects such as bonus abuse. Like most things it is about balance and moderation. White labels can be a good thing but too many white labels can cause problems. There are also additional risks with white labels, which we will get onto next. 

Are there risks for players to play at any of these white labels or are they protected by the licensing body and the parent company that supplies this software solution?

I operate in the UK and here we have the UK Gambling Commission as the regulatory body for all forms of gambling. Here you need a gambling license to operate legally, whether that is for a white label solution or a fully-fledged operator.

This means that white label operators still need to comply with basic rules, such as promoting safe and responsible gambling and protecting players, preventing use of the industry for crime, and offering fair products to players with effective communication.

Indeed, the fact the UK is regulated has driven more white label sites here compared with unregulated markets. This is largely because getting a gambling license can be a difficult and involved process. The easiest thing to do is use a white label provider that already has its own license that the brand can operate under.

A big drawback of this is it is not actually the brand that is responsible for you. Rather the operator and license holder are responsible for your safety and your money.

In the UK we have three tiers of deposit protection, for example. High (customer funds held with an independent company, protected in the event of insolvency), medium (some form of insurance to protect customer money) and no protection (customer funds held in a separate account but still part of the business and no protected). You will find that most white labels offer no protection of customer funds so if it does go bust there is no guarantee the player will get all of their money back.

Therefore, there are additional risks with white labels but in regulated markets these are largely mitigated by regulations designed to protect people. As regulations have increased white label providers have need to increase their fees as a result to cover the costs of meeting new rules. This has had an impact on new brands coming into the market as it isn’t quite as cheap as it used to be to set up a white label.

How are affiliates affected in this whole ecosystem with the numerous amount of white label casinos as well as ones that are constantly closing. Is this good for anybody?

Many white labels are short lived, and many suffer from funding issues, this is normally not a good situation for affiliates.

I have had tens, possibly over 100, white label sites close that we have been promoting. In most cases we have been paid but we have had to write down debt from several white label brands over the years.

I learned early on to not set up deals focused on revenue share and instead we tend to work on a cost per acquisition (CPA) model or a hybrid weighted towards CPA. This solution has worked reasonably well as when brands close it doesn’t matter so much if you have been paid for accounts up front.

There is an argument that white labels should be avoided and that you should send accounts to established bigger brands instead. The issue there is it is harder to send accounts to saturated sites. Many players are looking for new sites to play with and these are often going to be white labels. I find you are better off having a few white labels, even though the closure risk is high, as an account with a white label is better than no account at all.

Like all things it is about balance and moderation. Having a mix of different types of operators is important to maximise potential but it is important to not over rely on any one brand or push too many accounts to one specific white label. We push white labels in certain instances, especially to people looking for new sites as most are white labels, but we wouldn’t push them to people looking for a deep product that will be around in 5 years time.

There are many articles that say the younger generation of gamblers want more than the status quo, that is more entertainment and interactivity with anything gaming related. Do you think this is what is the big problem facing white labels today?

White labels certainly find it hard to differentiate themselves and so they face more of a challenge in this regard. Ultimately, though, it comes down to who owns the brand, what they want to do and how much effort and money they are prepared to put in.

Providers for white label solutions offer many out of the box ready products these days but there are many options brand owners can use to tailor their sites. Indeed, white label options are now vast compared to just ten years ago.

Brands that make the effort to tailor their product and focus on specific niches tend to do better. You are not suddenly going to create a site that competes with bet365 or 888 and so you need to think about what aspects you want to be known for. Of course, this will cost the brand owner more money (either upfront or in ongoing fees) and so you find that those that are more serious about succeeding and invest more in the product do better. That is true of almost any industry.

We have many white labels that we have worked with for many years that still manage to maintain something unique about them. These sites certainly can appeal to younger generations but as you say it is more of a challenge.

If you were launching a white label casino, what would you do to make your brand stand out and differentiate from the hundreds of white labels that exist?

I would focus on a specific niche, and I would research that niche as deeply as I could before choosing the best white label solution to fit that. It wouldn’t be the cheapest solution available but at the same time the site doesn’t need to do everything if it is focused so it doesn’t need to be the most expensive either.

I’ve noticed in recent years there are many new white label providers entering the market. A good option is to choose a solution that is not overused in any specific market so there are not tens or hundreds of sites out there that look pretty much the same. Although, you need to be aware that can change very quickly in the future and so you cannot set up a site and then simply leave it, which is what a lot of white labels do.

If you want to be seen as a more fun site aimed at lower stakes gamblers, you can add products such as bingo or lotto that can help you show your audience what you are about. You can then support that with an appropriate theme and colour scheme.

If you want to be seen as a site for serious players, you can focus on incorporating as many games as possible to give the widest choice. You may also want to add a sportsbook to support that and show the audience that you want to provide an all-encompassing product. You would likely go with a darker / plainer theme that showcases the games as serious players don’t want all the frills, they just want to find and play the games they want quickly.

In all honesty if I were to launch a site, I would probably invest a little more in it. I would try to get my own license and a few staff, and I would use third-party solutions to provide different products. This to me is the ideal solution as you keep more control of your brand, you are responsible for your customers and their money, and you can change and focus your site more easily. The costs are more upfront but ongoing fees are lower. This to me seems like the best option if you are serious about being in the market for a decade or more.