The cost of complexity: how it affects BETER as it grows across markets and products

BETER has outlined how the "cost of complexity" materialises when expanding products and markets, and how that changes the company’s financial equation. The term does not appear as a single P&L line: it is distributed across people, technology, compliance, integrations, reporting, working capital and less visible costs such as management attention and slower decision-making.

Gonzalo Marín, Sector operations correspondent.

What BETER means by "cost of complexity"

The company explains that growth decisions generate two successive questions for a chief financial officer: "How much revenue will this generate?" and then "What complexity are we adding to generate it, and is the return worth it?". That second question is what triggers the analysis of the cost of complexity.

BETER emphasises that the cost does not appear as a single line in the accounts. It is fragmented into:

• additional hiring and support

• technology investment and maintenance

• compliance requirements and certifications

• custom integrations and reporting

• working capital

• intangible costs: management attention, slower decisions and an increase in operational exceptions

The company gives the contrast between offering a single product in a market with ten customers and having five products in twenty markets with one hundred customers: the operational combinatorics multiply and require maintaining hundreds of variants.

How this translates into commercial deals and pricing

BETER says part of the complexity stems from adapted commercial conditions: when an operator enters a new market or integrates fast-launch content, that operator usually asks for better terms to offset the risk. The operational question is how that risk is shared.

Introductory terms can be structured around ramp-up, volumes or milestones. The problem arises when temporal uncertainty produces a "permanent under‑pricing": fixed costs for technology, data, trading, streaming, integrity monitoring and infrastructure do not disappear simply because the operator is in a trial phase. If there is no credible path to scale, someone is indefinitely funding the experiment.

BETER gives a typical example that ends up rejected or restructured: deals requiring high customisation or integration work, low committed volumes and long payment terms. When implementation, ongoing support, working capital and the opportunity cost of the staff involved are accounted for, profitability changes radically. The frequent response is to restructure: change prices, reduce scope or add volume thresholds.

"Cost of complexity" is spread across the organisation, in additional people, technology, compliance requirements, integrations, reporting and working capital, and in less visible costs such as management attention, slower decisions and a growing number of exceptions.

Upfront costs to enter regulated markets

The company lists pre-revenue costs to operate in a regulated jurisdiction: licences, external advisers, certifications and product adaptations. Those expenses are added to in-house legal and compliance resources, technology work, commercial preparation, tax analysis and management time.

BETER uses the United States as an example to illustrate the multiplicity of markets: each state has its own regulatory framework, so entering "the US market" is equivalent to entering many markets one by one. BETER entered the regulated United States market in 2025 and, in October 2026, held approvals in ten states, as well as Ontario and Alberta in Canada. Before deciding, the company reviews how much of the market is realistically addressable, the speed at which investment can be monetised, the expected margin and the possibility of reusing the infrastructure in other markets. Priority is given to reusability of the investment over mere market size.

Relationship with suppliers and procurement discipline

BETER recognises the price pressure suppliers face in iGaming and advocates rational negotiation from both sides. The company distinguishes between reducing cost and shifting margin. If a strategic supplier is pushed below a sustainable economics, it will invest less, service levels will worsen and innovation will fall; in extreme cases the supplier may disappear.

Procurement, according to BETER, must value total cost and total value, which do not necessarily coincide with the cheapest unit price. This priority aims to prevent the cheapest solution becoming the most expensive in the medium term.

Lessons from other industries and recommendations for CFOs in growth

The executive recalls his experience in metals and mining, agriculture and technology: capital‑intensive investment forces discipline in capital allocation; agriculture teaches about volatility and working capital; auditing helps understand how the numbers are actually constructed. All of this translates well to iGaming.

On decision speed, the analogy fails: processes that take three months to approve an investment can be too late. BETER prefers guardrails over approval gates: clear investment principles, robust data, defined accountability and quick escalation when something falls outside normal parameters.

Answering what to watch in rapidly growing companies, the CFO recommends monitoring the gap between growth and economic quality. Unit economics, cash conversion, growth of fixed costs and the amount of bespoke activity accumulating must be tracked. Key repeat questions are: are we building capabilities that enable the next phase of growth or merely adding resources to handle the complexity created?

BETER closes with a clear principle: there is no problem with complexity that creates value. The risk is when complexity grows faster than the organisation’s capacity; then growth becomes expensive and fragile. The CFO’s role is to help sustain growth without losing the economics that made it attractive.