Having received a clean bill of health from 32 consecutive audits undertaken by various gaming regulators, Casumo’s management was probably right to feel confident heading into the 33rd in April. Except this time, it was the Gambling Commission (GC) conducting its first proper assessment of the casino operator since Britain’s regulator handed down a £6m fine and an official warning in 2021 for social responsibility failures.
“It was a remote audit by the same people who audited us in the previous years, so I didn’t know if this was a pro or a con,” says Casumo CEO Francesco Postiglione with a chuckle. Either way, it was “a very extensive process”, he confirms.
The Malta-headquartered company was given more than three weeks to prepare, while the assessment itself lasted about a month. “The main thing they [the GC] want to understand is your governance and risk framework,” Postiglione discloses on a Teams call with EGR. “They start by understanding your policies and procedures when it comes to corporate governance, anti-money laundering, KYC and responsible gaming. They want to know how the leadership is involved in these matters – how much leadership knows what is going on at a customer level.”
Casumo’s CEO says the GC asked to see details of more than 100 player accounts before zeroing in on up to 20 selected at random. “They scrutinise the sort of interactions there were with the player and what sort of responsible gaming interactions you have undertaken during the lifetime of the player. What kind of anti-money laundering controls and affordability checks you have performed.”
GC assessments can be “quite intrusive”, Postiglione reveals. “They are very good at challenging you – cornering you to understand if you are consistent with your approach. “We were able to prove that we have a robust, solid, consistent and transparent governance framework. When they ended the audit, they explicitly told us that it was one of the best they had ever read. As simple as that.”
Praise indeed, but Postiglione is at pains to point out he shouldn’t take all the credit. “It was a joint effort of every department based on the good foundations built by the previous compliance team, involving everyone from HR to technology, product, customer service and fraud. When you have to fix compliance inside a company, it must be supported from everywhere otherwise you fail.”
Mighty fine
There’s no getting away from the fact the glowing GC comments reported by Casumo’s boss are in stark contrast to the regulator’s excoriating findings, published in March 2021, which revealed how one customer lost £1.1m over three years without a single responsible gambling (RG) interaction. Then there was the player who was down £89,000 in just five hours, while another lost £59,000 in the time it takes to watch a football match. Likewise, both customers weren’t subject to an RG interaction.
Perhaps more worrying was the fact the six-figure penalty was meted out less than three years after Casumo received a £5.85m fine from the GC. “The damage was relevant, as you can imagine,” acknowledges Postiglione, who was recruited as CEO in 2023, two years after the second sanction. “For a company the size of Casumo, it was relevant from a financial, reputational and operational point of view.”
Two fines totalling almost £12m could be an existential crisis for some challenger operators. However, even before Postiglione’s arrival from Croatian bookmaker Hattrick-PSK, Casumo’s leadership and board had begun laying the groundwork to rebuild this multi-jurisdictional business and introduce robust compliance and RG frameworks. The newly installed boss quickly identified a problem in his eyes, though: a “one-size-fits-all approach” had been adopted.
“Every jurisdiction is very peculiar and different from each other. I’ve seen companies make this mistake a few times. They take the UK as their benchmark and simply replicate what they do in the UK elsewhere.” Postiglione continues: “Not because elsewhere is less strict than the UK but simply because elsewhere the requirements are different. You can create friction for the players for nothing, or you don’t create friction when you should […] the previous team did a good job, so there were good foundations. But again, these conditions were very UK based.”
As part of the turnaround, management realigned Casumo’s centre of gravity towards the regulated space. Today, 70% of turnover is from its regulated markets of the UK, Sweden and Spain. The remaining 30% is attributable to Finland and New Zealand, two countries at opposite sides of the globe and both on the cusp of regulation. Casumo plans to become a fully licensed operator in Finland and New Zealand, once the licensed regimes are in place.
Another priority in the CEO’s in-tray in 2023 was to replace a creaking tech stack which had become – particularly the frontend – “obsolete” and “not fit for purpose”. The team had to “rebuild everything from scratch,” the CEO recalls. Then, of course, there was the urgency to turn Casumo into a compliant and sustainable business that could “pass all audits in the foreseeable future”, he notes.
Given the magnitude of the task, Postiglione could be excused for having second thoughts once he took up the reins more than three years ago. “I’m not a quitter,” he asserts in response to that specific question. “Once I start a job, I try to finish it. That’s my style.” Nevertheless, the fallout from the regulatory action was “spread across the company, to be honest”.
Postiglione explains: “There were very few areas that were functioning properly. When you do a turnaround – at least in my experience – you usually inherit something where 80% doesn’t work and 20% does. Here it was close to 100%. I have to thank everyone at Casumo because they have done a great job to help me fix a number of things.”
Much of 2023 was spent formulating the action plan that was implemented the following year. In the two years since, Casumo has quadrupled the size of its business in the UK, the CEO says, underpinned by efforts to make the country its biggest market. “I found a company which really didn’t have a market of reference,” Postiglione points out. “Usually, you’ll have one or two strong markets which represent a good part of the sales.
“Then you probably have three or four ancillary jurisdictions that represent a future possibility or opportunity. You can drop [these] without too much pain if you need to make a cut. Casumo didn’t have that market of reference, so we built one. We had to build the UK almost from scratch.”
Looking back now, where does Casumo rank for Postiglione personally in terms of the scale of the work required? “For sure the toughest turnaround of my career, and I’ve done a couple already.”
Enter the ‘Umoverse’
Born 14 years ago, Casumo was founded by collective of Swedish entrepreneurs, including the startup’s initial CEO, Oscar Simonsson. Borrowing elements from social gaming, like leaderboards and levelling up through earning different sumo belts, this icasino’s unique gamification elements and whimsical aesthetics soon turned heads.
In fact, Casumo took the ‘Rising Star’ category at the EGR Operator Awards in 2013, shortly after the first mobile iteration of the product was released. Casumo proved to be no flash in the pan, either; the brand scooped the ‘Innovation in Casino’ accolade the next two years on the bounce and was named ‘Mobile Casino Product of the Year’ in 2015, too.
For years, the bold and quirky visual identity of the brand and its so-called ‘Umoverse’ was spearheaded by a little ‘sumo’ character. Yet the quirky two-dimensional figure eventually had to be ditched at the behest of the GC, following the 2021 financial penalty and warning. In 2024, management felt it was time Casumo underwent a brand refresh, while staying true to the operator’s roots with a playful and bold visual identity.
“I believe we really nailed the branding,” Postiglione insists. “The brand stands for a light, fun experience and responsible gaming, as well as giving the players a little thrill. Our target is to offer a thrilling experience which is honest and unharmful.”
He adds: “We are coming back with new gamification systems. We have just launched new missions, leaderboards, ‘wheels of fortune’ and loyalty programmes, while we are trying to close a number of gaps to make this company what it was in terms of gamification and innovation.”
“I will always be a ‘regulated’ manager”
Having spent nearly two decades working in gaming across mainland Europe – including MD and CEO at Betclic Everest Group and Napoleon Sports & Casino, respectively, – Postiglione has witnessed first-hand how regulation and compliance have shaped the industry.
Especially in Europe, dot.country regulation has swept the continent, while overzealous politicians in various markets have put the squeeze on licensed operators by tightening rules and raising taxes. “Very painful for everyone” is how Casumo’s boss characterises the impact of the UK government hiking remote gaming duty from 21% to 40% as part of last November’s Budget.
It’s perhaps little wonder, then, the exploding unregulated aspect of the sector has become an attractive proposition – for industry professionals and players alike. “I’ll be absolutely honest here: the unregulated market is a fun industry with a lot of innovation and things that you can do,” Postiglione acknowledges. “Regulated has become a little bit boring compared to where it was 10, 15 years ago.” There’s a ‘but’ coming, though. “Ethically, I am and always will be a regulated manager. I’ll never be an unregulated manager or CEO whatsoever.
“What keeps me here? My competencies, my skills and my hope to transfer my knowledge to younger adults. I hope that I can mentor people going forward. Being a relatively small company in a regulated market can be an inspiration for the younger generation – a generation that I unfortunately see being attracted by unregulated businesses. If I look to the other side, the unregulated [industry], I just want to run away from it.”
So, no amount of cash could tempt Casumo’s chief to take a senior position at a crypto casino? Postiglione uses an English idiom to hammer home his response: “No, it’s not my cup of tea.”
EGR reached out to the GC for comment. A spokesperson said the regulator cannot comment on individual operators.
The post Casumo CEO: Task to turn around this business has been “the toughest of my career” first appeared on EGR Intel.
With the casino operator recently completing a Gambling Commission assessment with flying colours, Francesco Postiglione discusses the root-and-branch repair job that was required following two separate seven-figure fines for compliance failures imposed by Britain’s regulator in 2018 and 2021
The post Casumo CEO: Task to turn around this business has been “the toughest of my career” first appeared on EGR Intel.