Turnkey Casino
A turnkey casino is a complete, vendor-built gambling platform that an operator runs under its own licence and brand, paying a setup fee plus revenue share.
What it means
An operator has a Curaçao or MGA licence, a marketing team, and a market it knows. What it doesn't have is eighteen months and a few million euros to build a platform. That's the turnkey buyer. A turnkey casino (spelled turn key just as often) is a complete, ready-to-run gambling platform delivered by a B2B vendor: player accounts, wallet, game library, payments, bonus engine, back office, front end. The operator plugs its own licence and brand into it and goes live.
Ownership is the point. In a white-label deal you rent someone else's licence as a sub-brand. With turnkey, the licence, the player database and the brand are yours, and the vendor is a supplier you can replace. The trade is that you carry compliance, KYC, AML reporting and the regulator relationship yourself. "Turnkey iGaming software" is the same product under a different search term.
What's in the box
| Component | Included by default | Who runs it day to day |
|---|---|---|
| PAM: accounts, wallet, KYC flow | Yes | Operator's ops team on vendor tooling |
| Game library via an aggregator | Yes, thousands of titles | Vendor |
| Payment gateway and cashier | Yes, with a PSP menu | Operator picks, vendor connects |
| Bonus and CRM engine | Yes | Operator's marketing team |
| Front end (web, mobile, PWA) | Template; custom design costs extra | Operator or an agency |
| Hosting, uptime, DevOps | Yes, SLA-backed | Vendor |
| Sportsbook module | Optional add-on | Vendor's trading desk |
| Gaming licence | No | Operator |
| Compliance and regulator reporting | Tooling only | Operator |
| Support and VIP hosts | No; managed services cost extra | Operator |
The last three rows are where turnkey and white label diverge. A white-label vendor sells those as part of the price. A turnkey vendor sells you the tools and leaves the liability with you.
Turnkey vs white label vs building it
| White label | Turnkey | Self-built | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | Vendor's; you're a sub-licensee | Yours | Yours |
| Brand and player data | Yours in name, often not portable | Yours and portable | Yours |
| Typical upfront | EUR 10k to 50k | EUR 30k to 150k+ | EUR 500k to several million |
| Ongoing | 20 to 40% of NGR | 10 to 20% of NGR, or a fixed licence fee | Salaries, hosting, certification |
| Time to launch | 1 to 10 weeks | 4 to 20 weeks | 12 to 24 months |
| Control over roadmap | Low | Medium; vendor decides releases | Full |
| Exit | Hard; players sit on someone else's licence | Platform migration is painful but routine | Not applicable |
The long-form comparison is in white label vs turnkey. The short version: white label to test a market without facing a regulator yet, turnkey once you've decided to stay, self-built when the platform itself is your product.
What it costs
These are typical market ranges for 2026, not quotes. Setup fees for a casino-only turnkey package cluster between EUR 30,000 and 100,000; sportsbook, a custom front end and extra jurisdictions push that well past 150,000. Monthly minimums of EUR 5,000 to 20,000 are common and apply whether or not the revenue share clears them. Rev-share on turnkey sits around 10 to 20% of NGR, stepping down with volume; some vendors swap it for a flat licence fee.
Then add the licence itself (an MGA B2C licence carries a fixed annual fee of EUR 25,000; Curaçao under the LOK regime is cheaper but no longer trivial) and game certification per market. A realistic first year for a regulated launch is EUR 250,000 to 500,000 before marketing. The step-by-step math is in how to open an online casino in 2026.
How platforms handle it
In the iGamingHub catalog, September 2026, 44 platform vendors are listed: 28 sell turnkey only, 11 offer both, and 5 are white label only. Of the 19 turnkey-capable vendors that publish a launch window, the fastest quotes 3 weeks and the slowest 32; the middle of the pack sits at 6 to 20 weeks. 25 of the 44 list crypto support, so "turnkey crypto casino" isn't a niche request, it's a checkbox.
Softswiss is a turnkey vendor on a hybrid pricing model, quoting 4 to 12 weeks to launch, with crypto payments built into the platform rather than bolted on. EveryMatrix runs pure revenue share, quotes 6 to 15 weeks, and its card lists 180 payment methods with casino, sports and CRM under one API. NuxGame offers both models, quotes 3 to 8 weeks, and comes sweepstakes-ready for US-facing operators. For contrast, white-label vendor SoftGamings quotes 1 to 8 weeks. How to weigh those cards against each other is covered in how to choose a platform provider.
Common confusions
Turnkey isn't "no work". You still hire compliance, support, payments and CRM people; the vendor only removed the engineering.
Turnkey never includes the licence. If a vendor says its turnkey deal "comes with a licence", that's white label under a different name, and the licence holder isn't you.
A supplier licence is the vendor's problem, not yours, but check it exists in your market. In the UK and Malta an unlicensed platform can't legally serve you.