We recently sat down with the seasoned industry executive Wilhelm Vöörtmann, Director of Infrastructure & Cloud at Betsson Group. With a career spanning two decades at institutions like NetEnt, Svenska Spel and Nasdaq, as well as leadership roles in AI and cybersecurity startups, Vöörtmann brings a "deep tech" perspective to the iGaming conversation.
As a global operator, the challenge isn't just about building games—it’s about managing the staggering complexity of infrastructure that supports them. Here are the key insights on how the industry is balancing growth with technical efficiency.
1. Managing Complexity
As iGaming companies expand through organic growth and M&A’s, they often face an exponential increase in infrastructure complexity. Vöörtmann highlights that the "Build vs. Buy" decision is deeply tied to an organisation's maturity.
- Providing focus to different aspects of the domain: To manage this, Betsson are evolving its structure, separating "Public Cloud" and "Private Cloud" into distinct domains. This allows the organisation to support the developer community’s need for speed while maintaining the legacy systems that still represent a large part of the operational workload.
- The Hyperscaler Balance: While hyperscalers offer incredible speed, operators must decide where to lean on these services and where to maintain internal control to avoid becoming "locked in."
2. The Rise of FinOps: Making the Cloud Profitable
One of the most significant shifts in modern infrastructure management is the introduction of FinOps—the practice of bringing financial accountability to the variable spend of the cloud.
- The "Shock" Factor: Cloud bills can escalate rapidly as an operator enters new markets or integrates acquired companies. Vöörtmann notes that a dedicated FinOps function often pays for itself by identifying inefficiencies that standard provider dashboards might obscure.
- Accountability is Key: "Shared responsibility is no responsibility." For FinOps to work, someone must be held accountable for the metrics. While the function identifies cost-saving opportunities, the execution must be a coordinated effort between finance and engineering.
3. Resilience and the Hybrid Cloud
While many peers have made full moves to the cloud, the conversation is shifting toward resilience and sovereignty.
- Avoiding Lock-in: To mitigate the risk of dependency on a single provider, there is a trend toward using Kubernetes to build services that are less "cloud-locked." This ensures that if an operator needs to shift workloads, the friction is minimised.
- On-Prem vs. Cloud for AI: An interesting debate is emerging regarding AI. While the cloud offers the latest models, running AI on-prem can be more cost-effective for established models as the use matures and won’t require as frequent updates. SaaS models will not be a given only way to run AI at scale.
Closing Thoughts
For an operator to succeed today, infrastructure can no longer be a silent background function. It must be a proactive, fiscally aware partner to the business. The goal is to optimise and "cap" costs without stopping the momentum of growth.
Is your infrastructure team merely "running the lights," or are they actively driving the financial and operational efficiency of your cloud stack? Connect with us and let’s start a conversation.
