iGaming Consulting Services

An iGaming consultant is an outside specialist hired for a decision the in-house team has not made before. You pay for judgement and for access to a network, not for headcount, which is why engagements are measured in decisions closed rather than in hours logged.

Operators call a consultant at four moments. The first is entering a new market or jurisdiction, where the cost of guessing is a licence application that fails or a launch with no lawful route to players. The second is getting a licence or a lawful model in place. The third is choosing a platform or a vendor stack, a decision that is expensive to reverse once player data sits inside it. The fourth is diagnosing growth that stopped or revenue that leaks, usually after months of rising acquisition cost with flat deposits.

Two things make buyers wary of consultants, and both are fair. One is the cookie-cutter pitch: a deck that was written for someone else's company with your logo on page one. The other is the consultant who hands over a report and disappears before anything is implemented. Our answer to the first is that scoping starts from your current setup, licence status and stack, not from a template. Our answer to the second is that we can stay and run what we recommend, with our own teams.

It is also worth saying what a consultant is not. A consultant is not a licence: law firms and corporate services providers file applications, while we shortlist jurisdictions, build the case and manage the process. A consultant is not a platform vendor, which is why we are not tied to any platform or game provider and take no commission for recommending one. And a consultant is not a staffing agency, although interim cover and team design are part of the service (see below).

Most iGaming consultancies stop at the roadmap. You then have to find an agency to execute the acquisition plan, a platform team to implement the tech decisions and a CRM team to build the lifecycle, with context lost at every hand-off and the timeline stretching by months.

BugsyEmpire is built the other way round. Behind the advisory work sit 45+ in-house specialists across paid media, programmatic, search, SEO, CRM, creative, tech support and development, so the roadmap can be executed by the people who wrote it, or handed to your team with tracking, accounts and channel approvals already in place.

That structure makes the advice better, not just faster to implement. Recommendations on markets, channels and creative are checked against what currently passes compliance and performs in live accounts, because we are buying in those accounts this week. A business plan that assumes Google or Meta traffic is worthless until the brand is actually approved to advertise there, and that gap is invisible to a consultant who has not submitted a gambling account for review in the last year.

The scale behind the advice is checkable: $150M+ in yearly paid media spend, 100+ iGaming brands, 1K+ projects, 12+ years in the industry, and platform partner status with Google, Meta, Snap and TikTok, including Snap Inc. Agency Partner.

You choose how much of that you use. Three engagement shapes are available: advisory only, advisory plus execution by our teams, or interim management inside your organisation. Where the work genuinely belongs elsewhere, we say so: licence filings, statutory audits and litigation go to the specialist firms and corporate services providers we work with.

Six advisory services, in the order operators usually need them: market entry and licensing, technology and vendor selection, sportsbook and casino setup, growth and acquisition audits, interim management and team building, and M&A advisory with network introductions.

Market entry and licensing strategy

Market entry work starts with a jurisdiction shortlist built against your product, timeline and budget, not against a list of popular licences. The first question is whether you need a regulated gambling licence at all or whether a lawful alternative model (sweepstakes, social casino, free-to-play with a prize mechanic) reaches your audience faster.

The entry plan covers the licence route, the payment stack, geolocation, KYC (know your customer: identity and age verification before a player can deposit or withdraw), the tax position, local advertising rules, the launch calendar and the state or country exclusion list. Two of those are the ones operators underestimate. Advertising rules decide whether you can buy traffic at all, and the exclusion list has to be enforced in the product, in the payment stack and in ad targeting, not just written into the terms and conditions.

We manage the process and the vendors; specialist firms file. After launch, the plan needs monitoring, because the rules move: the US sweepstakes statute list below changed in nine states within twelve months.

Deliverable: a jurisdiction comparison and a dated entry plan with owners per workstream.

Technology solutions and vendor selection

The platform decision is really a choice between three models, and the trade-off is the whole decision:

• White label: you launch on another licence holder's platform, often under their licence. Fastest route to market, least control over product and data, revenue share on top.
• Turnkey: the platform is supplied for you to run under your own licence and brand. More control and better margins, higher cost and a longer setup.
• Proprietary build: full control over product and roadmap, highest cost, longest timeline, and a development team to maintain for as long as the brand exists.

Vendor selection then runs across the rest of the stack: platform, game aggregator (a single integration that supplies content from many studios instead of one integration per studio, which cuts both integration work and the cost of adding games), payments, CRM, geolocation, KYC, affiliate software and hosting. We source White Label and Turnkey platforms and provide Cloud and Server hosting where a client wants that handled in one place.

One sequencing rule decides whether the rest works: tracking and MarTech (the tag manager, analytics, attribution and CRM layer that records what a campaign produced) must be in place before paid media scales. Without it, spend cannot be tied to deposits, and the first optimisation decision is made on guesswork.

Treat the platform choice as close to irreversible. Migrating a live playerbase costs months of roadmap, so this is the decision most worth paying for advice on.

Deliverable: a shortlist with commercial terms compared side by side, plus negotiation support on the contract.

Sportsbook and casino setup

Sportsbook setup is a risk decision before it is a product decision: margins by competition, stake and liability limits, the market offering, bet acceptance rules, liability monitoring and, most importantly, who owns risk day to day once you are live.

Casino setup covers the game mix per market (what converts in Ontario is not what converts in Japan), provider selection through aggregators or direct integrations, bonus mechanics that stay inside local rules, and the payment flow from registration to first deposit, which is where most new brands lose players.

Growth and acquisition audit

The growth audit is our most evidenced advisory product and the lowest-risk way to start. It reviews seven things: tracking and attribution, channel mix and spend allocation, creative, bidding strategy, CRM lifecycle and retention, landing pages, and compliance exposure in ads and on site.

The commercial logic behind that scope matters. CPA (cost per acquisition, the media cost of one depositing player) is recovered only through repeat deposits over a player's lifetime, so a brand that looks like it has a media problem usually has a retention problem. That is why the audit covers both halves instead of auditing media in isolation.

We delivered a full PPC, social media and programmatic audit for Fortuna, which is this product in practice rather than in theory.

The output is a prioritised roadmap: each action with an owner, a deadline and the expected impact, ordered by revenue effect rather than by effort.

Execution, if you want it from us, runs through our channel teams: PPC, SEO and CRM.

Interim management and team building

Interim management puts an experienced operator inside your team while you hire, restructure or enter a market. The deliverable is not presence but handover: a documented setup, a hiring profile for the permanent role and onboarding for whoever takes it.

Team building answers the adjacent question, which is what an in-house acquisition or CRM function actually needs at your stage and what is cheaper to keep outsourced. A brand doing $200k a month in spend does not need the same structure as one doing $2m.

M&A advisory and network introductions

M&A (mergers and acquisitions) work in iGaming is less about valuation models and more about access: knowing who is quietly for sale, who is funded and buying, and which assets break under diligence. We advise on both sides of the table.

On the buy side, we help define what you are actually looking for (operator, affiliate asset, B2B studio, platform provider), source targets from our network, and pressure-test the commercial story before you spend money on diligence: traffic quality, dependence on a single channel or affiliate, licence and compliance exposure, and how much of the revenue survives the change of owner.

On the sell side, we prepare the asset so it survives scrutiny (clean reporting, documented traffic sources, compliance position), position it with the buyers and investors most likely to pay for it, and support the negotiation to signing.

Around both sits the network: operators, suppliers, investors and buyers built up over 12+ years and 100+ brands, plus B2B introductions for clients who need a partner rather than a deal. Commercial negotiations with platforms and providers on your behalf belong here too.

We work alongside your corporate and legal advisors on diligence and documentation rather than replacing them.

We advise where we also buy media, so the knowledge is current rather than historical. Three blocks: the United States, Europe, and the verticals that sit outside standard casino and sportsbook.

United States: sweepstakes and social casino

The US sweepstakes casino model runs on dual currency: a free currency for play and a second promotional currency that can be redeemed for prizes. That structure is why it sits outside gambling licensing, and why state legislators have spent two years writing statutes against it.

Eleven states have an explicit statute, with the bill numbers and effective dates that affiliate "legality maps" get wrong: Montana (SB 555, 10.2025), Connecticut (SB 1235, 10.2025), New Jersey (A5447, 08.2025), Nevada (SB 256, 10.2025), California (AB 831, 01.01.2026), New York (S5935A / Ch.605, 05.12.2025), Indiana (HB 1052, 01.07.2026), Maine (LD 2007, 14.07.2026), Tennessee (SB 2136, 22.05.2026), Louisiana (HB 883 and HB 53, 01.08.2026) and Oklahoma (SB 1589, 01.11.2026). Separately, Washington, Michigan, Idaho and Delaware block the model under older gambling law (Idaho allows play but not redemption), Iowa's SF 2289 is a de facto ban, and Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia and Mississippi enforce it without a statute.

The part operators miss is who carries the risk. These statutes extend liability beyond the operator to payment processors, geolocation vendors, content suppliers and affiliates, which turns the exclusion list into a technical and commercial requirement rather than a legal footnote.

Tax treatment changed too. The IRS reporting threshold for prizes rose from $600 to $2,000 for prizes awarded after 31 December 2025 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Form 1099-MISC Box 3, inflation-indexed from 2027). Sweepstakes prizes go on 1099-MISC rather than W-2G, because there is no wager, and the threshold is the operator's filing obligation, not a tax-free allowance for the player.

Our footprint here is 50+ brands in North America, plus the published case study on breaking into the US sweepstakes market.

Europe: regulated casino and sportsbook

In Europe we work inside licensed markets with operators of real size: Superbet, Fortuna, Betclic and Betsson are clients, across acquisition, programmatic and audit work.

Other verticals we work in

Vertical choice changes the advice more than country choice does:

• Lottery: state and national operators, including work for the UAE national lottery, where brand and trust matter more than performance creative.
• Social casino: entertainment play with no prize redemption. It needs separate Google ad certification, a separate account, and brand assets that do not reference a real-money product.
• ADW (advance deposit wagering: horse race betting from a pre-funded account): regulated separately from casino and sports betting in the US, with its own advertising constraints.
• Prediction markets: contracts on event outcomes, overseen by financial rather than gambling regulators, which changes both compliance and channel access.
• DFS (daily fantasy sports) and pack ripping and card games: adjacent audiences we buy for, useful when a brand wants cheaper reach than casino keywords allow.

Geographically that extends to Asia (Japan) and the UAE alongside North America and Europe.

Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.

1. Discovery call. We ask about product, markets, licence status, current spend and stack, and the decision you are facing. The output is an honest answer on fit and which engagement shape makes sense.
2. Audit or scoped diagnosis. Fixed scope, fixed timeline. For growth questions this is the audit above; for entry questions it is the jurisdiction and vendor comparison; for M&A it is the target or asset review.
3. Roadmap. A prioritised action list with an owner, a deadline and the expected impact per item. Consulting without a named owner and a date per action turns into a shelved document, so we do not deliver one without them.
4. Execution or handover. Either our teams run the plan, or your team does with tracking, accounts and channel approvals already set up.

The work follows the same operating sequence we use on every account: Track, Test, Acquire, Engage, Optimise, with tracking and MarTech first. Where the roadmap touches player-facing offers or VIP treatment, responsible gambling checks sit inside it rather than beside it, because bonus mechanics that ignore them do not survive a regulator's review.

Practicalities: NDA on request.

Five published cases, each one a decision we advised on and then executed.

Snapchat as a primary acquisition channel. Most operators had written Snapchat off for iGaming. Working as a Snap Inc. Agency Partner, our clients spent $10M on the channel in 2025, gross advertising volume grew 180x year on year, and our own client roster grew 400% in the same period, with Story Ads as the strongest format. As our COO Karolina Moscicka put it: "Story Ads quickly became our strongest performer." The consulting lesson is that channel selection is a strategic decision, not a media-buying detail.

Programmatic DOOH for Superbet. DOOH (digital out-of-home: advertising on digital screens in physical locations, bought programmatically) used as a brand channel for a regulated European operator, planned and bought alongside performance campaigns.

Audit for Fortuna. A full PPC, social media and programmatic audit, which is the growth audit product delivered for a major regulated operator.

CRM with Customer.io and Optimove. Lifecycle and retention work across two platforms, which is where acquisition spend either pays back or does not.

Breaking into the US sweepstakes market. Market entry in the vertical described above, from compliance constraints through to channel approvals and scaled acquisition.

Four engagement models, priced by scope rather than by hours:

• Fixed-scope project: an audit, a market entry plan, a vendor selection or an M&A target review.
• Monthly retainer: ongoing advisory with a standing call and a live roadmap.
• Interim management: one of our people inside your team for a defined period.
• Advisory plus execution: our channel teams run the roadmap we wrote.

For context on the market, iGaming consultancy project engagements run roughly EUR 15,000 to 80,000 and monthly retainers EUR 5,000 to 30,000 (figures published by the OnlyiGaming consultancy directory, not our rate card). Our own pricing depends on scope, market and whether execution is included.

To start, send the form or email [email protected] with your product, your markets and the decision you are facing.

What are iGaming consulting services?

iGaming consulting services cover market entry and licensing strategy, technology and vendor selection, sportsbook and casino setup, growth and acquisition audits, interim management, and M&A advisory with network introductions. Our version adds the option to execute the roadmap with our own teams.

Do you only advise, or can you run the plan?

Both. 45+ in-house specialists cover paid media, programmatic, search, SEO, CRM, creative, tech and development, and we manage $150M+ of media a year, so the same people who write the roadmap can implement it.

Do you work with startups and pre-launch brands?

Yes. Pre-launch work is usually the market entry plan first and vendor selection second, in that order, because the platform decision is the one you cannot cheaply reverse.

Can you help us get a licence?

We shortlist jurisdictions, build the entry plan and manage the process and the vendors. Filings and legal opinions are delivered by the specialist firms and corporate services providers we work with, which is the honest division of labour between a gambling consultant and a law firm.

Do you advise on the US sweepstakes model?

Yes, and it is one of our core markets: 50+ brands in North America and a published market entry case study. Advice covers the state exclusion list (eleven states with explicit statutes, plus the states enforcing under older law), liability reaching payment processors, geolocation vendors, content suppliers and affiliates, and prize reporting on Form 1099-MISC above $2,000.

Which platforms and vendors do you recommend?

We are not tied to any platform or game provider and take no commission for recommending one. We shortlist against your market, product and budget, and we source White Label or Turnkey platforms plus Cloud or Server hosting when a client wants it handled in one place.

Can you help us advertise if our brand is not approved on Google or Meta?

Whitelisting is part of our standard scope. Google requires gambling certification per country alongside a local licence, with no under-21 targeting in the US and landing pages that show an age warning, addiction resources, terms and the licensee name and licence number. Meta requires prior written permission, and its policy explicitly covers sweepstakes as well as casino and betting.

Do you work on M&A deals?

Yes, on both sides: buy-side target sourcing and commercial review, and sell-side preparation, positioning and negotiation support, working alongside your corporate and legal advisors.

Where are you based and which markets do you cover?

Nicosia, Cyprus, with work across North America (50+ brands), Europe, Asia (Japan) and the UAE.