Opportunities for Operators Who Want to Start an Online Casino in Asia

If you are looking to start an online casino in Asia, you might be interested in what you can do to open a legal, profitable business. A gaming site that involves real-money transactions will require a gaming license, but there are also other alternatives that we would like to suggest.

• Start online casino with Philippines license

First of all, we would like to point out that the Philippines offers the only internet gaming license available in the Asian online casino market. Even so, the Philippines offers a highly valuable gambling license, due to the fact that it provides internet connectivity with wide bandwidth capabilities and a solid infrastructure.

The Philippines license offered by First Cagayan offers a series of services which bring high value to online casino companies’ operations. Operators who want to start an online casino in Asia with a First Cagayan full license that lasts 12 months will have to pay an application fee of $40,000 ($15,000 non-refundable and $25,000 refundable if the application is not accepted) and 2% of gross casino gaming winnings per month. If applicants manage to comply with all the requirements and pass all the tests, the license can be obtained in about 30 working days.

It is true that obtaining a Philippines license can prove to be very profitable in the highly lucrative market of Asia, but the costs that come with purchasing and renewing the license are very high.

• Open online gaming site with Bitcoin

If you are looking to start an online casino in Asia, but you do not want to spend a high amount of money on the licensing process, you can open a Bitcoin gaming site. Bitcoin is accepted all around the world, but China is home to the world’s highest-volume cryptocurrency exchanges, and the largest producer of Bitcoins. The leading financial centers Singapore and Honk Kong have also jumped in the Bitcoin game and managed to attract an important number of Bitcoin users. Vietnam and Thailand have established trust channels for Bitcoin operations, and local companies and users can easily exchange cryptocurrencies for real money. This year, gaming insiders expect that Bitcoin will also go large in India.

The advantages of starting a Bitcoin gaming site are that you will no longer have to invest in obtaining a license. A Bitcoin payment infrastructure will be easy to manage, thanks to the wide choice of payment providers. There are some startup costs, but if you start an online casino in Asia with Bitcoin, you will surely not reach the costs of opening and running a real-money casino.

• Create a Facebook social gaming app

Facebook gaming has proved to be a highly lucrative business for operators. It is true that in several countries in Asia, including China, Facebook is banned. Even so, according to statista.com, the number of Facebook users in the Asia Pacific region has grown from 255.5 million in 2013 to 308.7 million in 2014, and is expected to reach 408.3 million by 2016. Facebook is packed with casino-style games, including slots, card games, bingo and much more. But there is one catch: starting an online casino in Asia on Facebook is not the same as opening a real-money casino.

On Facebook, you will earn money by using a series of strategies that major online gaming companies use by offering Facebook apps. For example, game developer Zynga has managed to rake in revenues of $250 million by simply charging players small amounts of money, so they can level-up faster in the games and earn unique items.

This is what you can do for your online gaming business: create a Facebook app with traditional online casino games like slots or poker, and then offer players the possibility to buy virtual money with real money, so they can unlock new games or keep playing their favorite games. Even so, a Facebook gaming app is not considered a casino, due to the fact that people do not cash out any of the virtual money they win while playing.

These are some of the methods that you can use to start an online casino in Asia. The Asia-Pacific region is considered the most rapidly-expanding gaming market, which, according to statista.com, grew from $34.2 million in revenue in 2010 to $79.26 million in 2015. After several years packed with positive casino gaming developments in Asia, we are looking forward to see how much will the industry expand during the following years.