Altenar vs Amelco 2026: Which Sportsbook Tech Fits

• Pick Altenar if you're targeting Europe or broad international markets, want to launch in roughly 6 to 12 weeks, and value a boutique supplier that treats every client as a priority with a dedicated manager and heavy customisation.
• Pick Amelco if you're a US-regulated operator (or heading there) that needs state licensing across markets like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Indiana, and wants a headless platform you can build your own front end on top of.
• The real fork: EU boutique fast-launch service book versus US-regulated headless trading platform for major operators. Market and build model decide it, not a feature checklist.
• Both run a fixed revenue model, 24/7 support and a dedicated manager. Altenar quotes roughly 99.9% uptime, Amelco roughly 99.95%. The gap that matters is geography and control, not those decimals.
• Neither replaces your own operator licence. You still hold that, everywhere you run.

Put Altenar and Amelco on the same shortlist and you've probably already made a mistake, because they're built for different continents and different kinds of operator. Altenar's a European boutique sportsbook supplier that gets you live in a couple of months with a lot of hand-holding. Amelco's a US-focused trading platform, engineering-led, headless, and aimed at operators big enough to run in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and a stack of other regulated states. One's a fast, service-heavy book. The other's a control-heavy platform for teams that want to build their own front end on top of someone else's trading brain.

So the honest question isn't "which is better." It's "which market am I in, and how much do I want to build myself." Answer those two and the choice mostly makes itself. An operator chasing European and rest-of-world markets on a tight timeline lands on one side. A serious North American operator that needs state-by-state certification and full control of the player experience lands on the other.

This piece walks the real decision points: target market and licensing, speed and cost of launch, customisation versus headless control, breadth versus US depth, and who each one is built for. Both are credible. Picking wrong just means you bought the wrong shape of solution for the operation you run.

What each one actually is

Altenar, founded in 2010 and licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority, is a boutique sportsbook provider with a mobile-first design and a service model that leans hard on personal support. Their whole pitch is that every client is a priority client, which in practice means a dedicated manager, 24/7 support, and a willingness to customise the product to your brand rather than hand you a fixed template. The offer is sportsbook plus virtual sports, and it's deliberately narrow: no casino, no crypto. It's API-first, ships in around 25 languages, and supports roughly 80 payment methods, which tells you exactly who it's for. That payment breadth and language range is European and international by design, aimed at operators who need to plug into a lot of local markets fast.

Amelco, founded in 2014, is a different animal. It's a US-focused sportsbook technology platform built for the American regulated market, with trading software, risk management and UI engineered around state-by-state compliance. It partners with major US operators, and its licensing and certifications line up with individual states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Indiana. The market is North America, and the product reflects that: sportsbook only, roughly 2 languages (English and Spanish), and around 30 payment methods built for US bettors, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Venmo. Amelco is both API-first and headless, meaning you can take the trading and risk engine and build your own front end on top of it. That's a big deal for large operators that treat their app and UX as a competitive asset they refuse to outsource.

That single contrast, a service-heavy European boutique versus an engineering-led US headless platform, drives almost every other line below.

Head to head

Here's the comparison most operators are actually trying to make, side by side.

Treat the table as a starting map, not gospel. Terms move with market, volume and how much of each product you take. But the shape is clear: Altenar's breadth is horizontal (many languages, many payments, fast launch), Amelco's depth is vertical (deep US-state compliance, headless engineering control).

Positioning Altenar: the fast European boutique

Altenar's centre of gravity is service and speed. The MGA licence and the roughly 25 languages point straight at Europe and broader international markets, and the 80-odd payment methods mean you can localise the cashier across a lot of jurisdictions without hunting for a separate provider. If you're launching a book for, say, a cluster of European regulated markets plus some rest-of-world reach, that breadth does real work.

The "boutique" framing isn't marketing fluff, it changes how the relationship runs. A dedicated manager, 24/7 support and a stated commitment that every client is a priority client means you get customisation and attention that bigger, more industrial suppliers ration. For a mid-size operator or ambitious launch brand, that hands-on model matters, because you'll have questions during integration and you want someone who picks up. The mobile-first design also reflects where European betting traffic actually lives, on phones, in-play, fast.

The narrowness is a feature, not a gap. Altenar does sportsbook and virtual sports and stops there. No casino, no crypto. If you want a full casino stack you'll pair Altenar with a separate platform or read up on what a turnkey casino setup involves, because Altenar isn't trying to be that. What it's trying to be is a sharp, customisable, fast-to-launch book, and roughly 6 to 12 weeks to go live backs that up. For a lot of operators, being live and competitive in a quarter beats a bigger feature list you wait half a year for. Our guide on how to launch a sportsbook walks the wider timeline.

Positioning Amelco: the US-regulated headless platform

Amelco starts from a completely different problem: how do you run a compliant sportsbook across a patchwork of US states, each with its own regulator, certification and rules. That's a brutal engineering and compliance job, and it's exactly what Amelco is built for. The licensing lines up with states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Indiana, and the platform is built to satisfy that kind of state-by-state scrutiny. If North America is your market, that pre-aligned compliance posture is worth more than almost any front-end feature, because building it yourself is slow, expensive and easy to get wrong.

The headless architecture is the other half of the story. Amelco is API-first and headless, so you take the trading, risk and pricing engine and build your own player-facing app on top. Major US operators want that, because at their scale the front end, the odds display, the bet-slip UX, the retention hooks, is a competitive weapon they won't hand to a template. Headless gives them the trading brain without surrendering the face of the product. If you don't know the term, headless just means the back end and front end are decoupled, so the platform serves data and logic through APIs and you own the presentation layer.

That control has a cost, and it shows up in the timeline: roughly 12 to 24 weeks to launch, versus Altenar's 6 to 12. You're doing more building, and you need the engineering muscle to do it. Amelco's footprint is also deliberately tight, sportsbook only, around 2 languages (English and Spanish), and around 30 US-centric payment methods including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and Venmo. That's focus, not limitation. Amelco isn't trying to serve 25 European languages, it's trying to be excellent in North America. Our piece on US iGaming state expansion covers why serious operators keep committing engineering budget to that market. You can see the current details on our Amelco provider page.

Speed, cost and control: the trade-offs that decide it

Three levers separate these two once you strip away the geography.

1. Speed of launch. Altenar's 6 to 12 weeks is roughly half Amelco's 12 to 24. If time to market is your pressure point, and for a launch brand it usually is, that difference is decisive. Amelco's longer runway isn't inefficiency, it's the cost of headless flexibility and US-state certification, but it's still time you're not taking bets.
2. Customisation versus control. Altenar customises the product for you, so you shape a book that's already largely built. Amelco hands you a headless engine and you build the front end, so you control the whole experience but you own the build. One is "tailored for you," the other is "raw control for you to wield." Pick based on whether you have the engineering team to use headless well, because a headless platform behind a weak in-house front end is wasted power.
3. Breadth versus depth. Altenar spreads wide: ~25 languages, ~80 payment methods, sportsbook plus virtual sports. Amelco goes deep: fewer languages and payments, but tuned precisely for the US regulated market and its operators. Breadth wins for multi-market international plays. Depth wins for a focused North American assault.

Both run a fixed revenue model rather than pure rev-share, which makes budgeting more predictable than a percentage that swings with turnover. And both give you 24/7 support and a dedicated manager, so on service structure they're closer than you'd guess. The uptime SLAs, roughly 99.9% for Altenar and 99.95% for Amelco, are both strong; don't let a rounding difference drive a six-figure decision. What should drive it is market fit and build capability. Margins in this business are thin enough already, as we covered in sportsbook margin compression, so the supplier that matches your operation and doesn't force a rebuild pays for itself.

A few things to model before you sign either contract:

• Market licensing reality. Amelco's value is US-state alignment; Altenar's is MGA and broad international reach. Buying the wrong one for your market means re-platforming later, which is the most expensive mistake in this list.
• Front-end capability. Amelco headless assumes you can build and run a front end. If you can't staff that, Altenar's customised, ready-shaped book is the safer road.
• Vertical scope. Neither ships casino. If you want casino later, plan the second supplier now, and understand your player account management layer that ties them together.
• Timeline pressure. If you must be live this quarter, the 6 to 12 versus 12 to 24 week gap probably ends the debate on its own.

Which one fits you

Cut through it with market and build model. Here's how the cases break down.

• Choose Altenar if — you're targeting Europe or broad international markets, you want to be live in roughly 6 to 12 weeks, you value a boutique supplier with a dedicated manager and heavy customisation, and a focused sportsbook plus virtual sports offer (no casino, no crypto) fits your plan. The wide language and payment coverage is built for exactly the multi-market operator you probably are.

• Choose Amelco if — you're a US-regulated operator or heading into North America, you need state-by-state licensing across markets like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Indiana, you want a headless platform to build your own front end on top of, and you've got the engineering team to use that control. The longer 12 to 24 week launch is the price of depth, and for a serious US play it's worth paying.

• Don't force the overlap. These two rarely compete for the same contract. If you're genuinely torn, you're probably mis-scoping your market or your team's build capacity. Get clear on both first, then the answer's obvious.

One reality check applies to either choice: the supplier won't rescue a weak operation. Fast payouts, sharp UX and retention still decide whether bettors stay, and a great trading engine behind a slow cashier leaks money regardless of whose logo sits on the back end. If you're cross-shopping the wider field, our Kambi vs Sportradar, Soft2Bet vs NuxGame and BetConstruct vs Digitain breakdowns cover platform-level players whose sportsbook offers overlap with parts of this decision. You can also see the current profile on our Altenar provider page.