Building crypto casino brands beyond affiliates, with marketing specialist Martin Varrand

Martin Varrand moved from a digital agency into iGaming, working at Betsson Group and at crypto casino Hit Gaming, and now runs Marketing Minds. In this Career Conversations episode from Gambling Industry Jobs he compares regulated and crypto marketing, and explains how he would build a team and why streamers matter.

In this episode

• Varrand entered iGaming as a country manager in the Baltics with no industry experience, learning from mentors there, and later worked on the Betsson and Bet Safe brands in regulated markets (3:00, 4:02, 5:00).

• In regulated markets budget was the constraint, he says; in crypto the problem is what to do with it, and it is easy to burn money on wrong decisions (5:00, 5:33).

• He lists common mistakes: relying on one channel, going all in on affiliates, which he says work less well in crypto, and ignoring long-term brand investment (6:03, 6:31, 7:00).

• His best campaigns were integrated: a rally driver ambassador at Betsson generated content, PR and backlinks, and fed media buying, social media and retention (10:01, 10:32, 11:02).

• For a new crypto casino he would hire a partnership manager and a social media or community manager first, preferring a crypto background over iGaming experience (14:30, 15:00, 16:30).

• He says white-label platforms make casinos look alike; speed, social play and streaming are growth areas, and he is building a platform to verify crypto streamers (21:01, 24:32, 27:00).

Interview from Career Conversations by Gambling Industry Jobs, published on YouTube.