Torrent Gear

TOP-10 of iGaming developed countries

How we selected

Ecosystem scale: presence of providers/operators, aggregators, payments, test labs.

Talents and pipelines: universities, technical base, commercial development experience, English.

Business environment: taxes/benefits, individual entrepreneurs/old-school and modern regimes, cost of living.

Compliance: access to licenses/certification, maturity of legal advisors.

Infrastructure: Internet/data center/office market, security, air traffic.

💡 Within countries - different cities/modes: focus on local clusters and industry benchmarks.

1) Malta

Why is the iGaming heart here. Historic B2B/B2C hub, density of providers, aggregators, PSPs, law firms and laboratories.

Hubs: Slim, St. Julians, Gzira.

Strengths: proximity to regulators and partners; fast hiring of experienced domain specialists; events all year round.

Best for: HQ, BD/marketing, compliance, product management, small core-R & D.

Risks/disadvantages: high cost of living and offices; competition for personnel.

2) Cyprus

Why popular. Soft tax environment, simple migration for IT, strong expat scene.

Hubs: Limassol, Nicosia.

Strengths: Many iGaming offices and co-dev contractors; convenient time zone; English-speaking environment.

Suitable for: front/backend teams, Live-ops, live games studios, payment integrations.

Risks/cons: overheated salaries in popular cities; dependence on rent and reloaded specialists.

3) UK

Why a key market. One of the strictest markets and mature staffing pools; top studios, analytics, design.

Hubs: London, Manchester, Leeds, Guildford.

Strengths: compliance expertise, data/BI, live video production, platform stacks.

Best for: platform/PAM, risk/AML, data-science, stream production, studios with a focus on quality

Risks/cons: high cost of hiring; complex regulatory perimeter.

4) Sweden

Why strong. The birthplace of a number of cult providers and a food school slots/mechanic.

Hubs: Stockholm, Gothenburg.

Strengths: design culture, production discipline, client engineering (WebGL/Unity), UX purity.

Suitable for: core game design, client graphics, high quality RGS integrations.

Risks/disadvantages: high cost; competition for seigneurs.

5) Poland

Why growing. Large and heterogeneous talent pool, strong development schools, good value for money.

Hubs: Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Gdansk.

Strengths: backend engineering, DevOps/SRE, art outsource studios, mobile client.

Suitable for: mass R&D, QA factories, ports to mobile/web, BI commands.

Risks/Cons: Growing Competition from Big Tech; motley domain expertise - onboarding is important.

6) Romania

Why profitable. Stable tech universities, iGaming/fintech software center experience, moderate rates.

Hubs: Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi.

Strengths: QA/automation, payment integrations, anti-fraud engineering, customer-support/BI.

Best for: test hubs, payments/wallets, risk/AML, low latency stream infra.

Risks/disadvantages: competition in the outsourcing market; quality is highly cluster-specific.

7) Ukraine

Why strong. A large pool of world-class engineers, strong mathematics, product discipline in mobile and web.

Hubs: Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Warsaw-Kyiv distributed teams.

Strengths: high-level backend/front, game client, analytics, anti-fraud/ML, art production.

Suitable for: distributed R&D, rapid-prototyping, Live-ops, QA/autotests.

Risks/cons: geopolitical volatility - plan reserve locations/DRs and hybrid contours.

8) Estonia

Why convenient. Digital state, fast registrations, fintech ecosystem and excellent data infrastructure.

Hubs: Tallinn, Tartu.

Strengths: fintech/payments, RegTech, data teams, cybersecurity.

Suitable for: payment teams, BI/data, legal structures for B2B.

Risks/cons: small domestic HR market; international hiring is often required.

9) Lithuania

Why on hearing. Active fintech licensing scene, available costs, English-language environment.

Hubs: Vilnius, Kaunas.

Strengths: PSP/open-banking integrations, AML/KYC orchestration, front teams.

Suitable for: payment hubs, compliance centers, web client.

Risks/cons: competition for personnel with banks/fintech; sometimes there are not enough senior architects.

10) Spain

Why growing. Strong gaming and video clusters, high-quality creative base and convenient logistics.

Habs: Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia.

Strengths: client/art/audio, live video, production management, UX research.

Suitable for: live games/show studios, client teams, creative production, community/marketing.

Risks/cons: regulatory restrictions on advertising and promo; growing salaries in top clusters.

Honorable mentions

Gibraltar and the Isle of Man are legal hubs for B2B/B2C structures.

Bulgaria, Serbia, Georgia, Portugal - rapid growth of R&D and studios, good value.

The Netherlands is a strong fintech/data but higher hiring costs and a strict compliance scene.

Why which country is better (cheat sheet)

HQ/Compliance/BD: Malta, UK.

Payments/RegTech/data: Estonia, Lithuania, United Kingdom.

Mass R & D/QA/automation: Poland, Romania, Ukraine.

Live show/client/creative: Spain, Sweden, Cyprus.

Hybrid distributed contours: Cyprus + Poland/Ukraine/Romania.

R.I.S.K.S. country selection matrix

R - Reach: proximity to operators/aggregators/PSPs and industry events.

I - Infrastructure: offices/data centers, Internet, air traffic, time zones.

S - Skills: depth of the personnel pool by stack (RGS, live video, payments, ML, compliance).

K - K-factor (cost): salaries, taxes, rent, benefits/grants.

S - Safety & Stability: regulatory maturity, political/force majeure risks, legal predictability.

Office/Hub Launch Checklist

Legal structure: B2B licenses/certificates, IP contracts, confidentiality, labor contracts.
Taxes: IT modes, benefits, VAT/withholding tax, transfer pricing.
Payments: PSP/open-banking, multicurrency, KYC/AML orchestration, reports and reconciliation.
Security: SOC2 approaches, access control, DPIA, anti-fraud/RG solution log.
Infrastructure: CDN/edge, power/communications reserve, DR plans and canary releases.
HR/hiring: employer branding, relocation, language courses, grade and compensation matrices.
Community: local events, partnerships with universities, participation in conferences (ICE/SiGMA/SBC).

Typical Allocation Strategies

1. Hub-and-Spoke: HQ and Compliance - Malta/UK; R&D - Poland/Romania/Ukraine; payments - Estonia/Lithuania; live creative - Spain/Cyprus.

2. Reg-first: first jurisdictions and certification (Malta/UK/Sweden), then scaling R&D where it is more profitable.

3. Cost-balanced: Cyprus as an "admin node," two R&D locations in CEE for sustainability and performance.

Risks and how to reduce them

Revaluation of "cheap" markets: salary savings are eaten up by low productivity → invest in processes/mentoring.

Legal uncertainty: without a local consultant, it is easy to disrupt advertising/RG → take industry lawyers.

Single-point-of-failure: one city/communication provider/PSP → duplicate.

Cultural gaps: one HQ, different clocks → synchronization rituals, default English, clear SLAs.

iGaming doesn't have "the only right country." Malta/UK give showcase and compliance, Sweden/Spain - taste for the client and the show, Poland/Romania/Ukraine - strong R&D and QA, Cyprus - tax and logistics flexibility, Estonia/Lithuania - fintech and data. Collect a card for your products: where to build the core of the platform, where to keep payments and compliance, where - live-creative and large-scale virgo. Then geography will become not a limitation, but a multiplier of speed, quality and compliance.