The thing is; it's one thing having the money for developing a gambling website or casino, but having the bankroll to make sure you can cover any winnings in the early days is also a requirement. The alternative is you can limit the amount your users can win, even fiat companies do this, but you have to make sure that you can handle the amount of money being wagered. If not, you've been rather irresponsible.
The staff don't come cheap either. You need a security expert, you need developers, chat moderators, odds makers, and likely a legal team. Since, the average person isn't going to know the laws around delivering content to multiple countries around the world. Also, you have to store secure data, and you need both security, and the legal process to do so.
You don't need a billion dollars though, that's a bit far fetched
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You do not need a billion dollars to start a casino even if you want to build the casino from the scratch, less than a million dollar should even be enough to start.
No everyone wants to build a casino, some people just like it and have fun with it. There are many millionaires in the world if compared to casinos, the casinos are few.
Any sophisticated casino software is going to cost you quite bit. I once got quoted £20k for a project which was far less complicated than a full fledged casino. It wasn't related to gambling, but including a mini game of sort. So, you need quite a bit of money for the software development itself, you need to hire people to make sure it operates smoothly, you ideally need to advertise, and you need the bankroll to cover any potential winnings. It's very likely going to be above, and beyond a million dollars.
Even more, a gambler may take unnecessary risks with his business (eg start with too low bankroll and risk not having money to pay the winnings at start, especially as the start is more expensive due to increased advertising and bonuses), so he can doom the business before properly starting it. Not a good mix.
Right, which I believe a lot of the sites open today, and are well renowned actually risked their reputation in order to get started. Unless, you're operating a rather low wagering site, i.e restricting user registrations, as well as wagers, you basically need to be a multi millionaire.
If I have the money, yes I would in a heartbeat. Casinos always win or either breakeven in the long run if the games they provide are truly provably-fair and has a lot of regular customers returning.
Generally, once they're large enough. However, quite a few casinos fail, and if you aren't careful it can get rather messy quick. I mean, definitely be prepared for law suits too which you should probably be factoring into your costs. I'm not saying you intend on getting sued, but if you've made any errors, then it can easily lead to a law suit. The big fiat companies have been sued multiple times, sometimes successfully.