Part two: how European tech hubs support the leading online operators

Betsson Group, Hungary

Launch: 2017

Tech hub: Budapest

Chief technology officer: Fredrik Ögren

There’s very much a startup vibe to Betsson’s modern and airy tech hub in Budapest, accentuated by the aqua-coloured slide jutting out from a trio of elevated ‘tree house’ meeting rooms. Just a stone’s throw from the Danube River, which winds through the Hungarian capital and divides the contrasting Buda from Pest, the base was established in 2017 on the site of a refurbished mill and features bare brick walls, exposed ceilings and elegant lighting. Shortly after it opened, the hub won ‘office of the year’ in the small enterprises category at the Real Estate (Hungary) Awards.  

Betsson has adopted a hybrid working policy, with three days a week spent at the hub (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and two days at home, yet the space has become insufficient to accommodate the full team of around 160 people all at once. And that’s despite the office having undergone an expansion in 2018 into an old part of the mill and 40 desks installed. The plan is to relocate to a larger office in Budapest and take the headcount, including contractors, to more than 200.

“It’s a little bit of a shame, though, because it’s a beautiful office,” admits Fredrik Ögren, chief technology officer (CTO) at Betsson Group over a Teams call. “We are looking to find something new and something that really stands out. But it needs to be close to this, close to that and it needs enough meeting rooms.”  

Despite outgrowing its current home, where the majority of the employees work on Betsson’s sportsbook back-end, Ögren says the city, dubbed the ‘Pearl of the Danube’, ticks most of the boxes as a location for a tech hub. “Budapest is smack in the middle of Europe and very easy to get to. It has all the infrastructure of a modern tech city.” It also has stunning architecture, good transport links and is a relatively cheap place to live – key factors as to why it has become a hotspot for digital nomads.

Startups are flourishing, too, raising $170m in capital in 2022 ($150m in 2021), according to European tech tracking resource firm Seedtable. Furthermore, a 2023 report by management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company revealed that Hungary has the region’s highest share of information and communication technology (ICT) specialists: 3.6% of the total workforce, compared with an average of 2.8% in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) as a whole. 

“You need to have somewhere that has good universities and schools but it’s also about salaries and the benefits you can give them in a specific region,” Ögren says, regarding selecting where to open a hub.

Betsson’s newest tech office is situated in Athens, where the workforce is fully remote, yet the CTO insists a city where there is “healthy competition” for tech professionals is key. “If you go in somewhere and there are no other tech companies there, then something is fishy or maybe you didn’t think it through properly. Today, everything is tested and explored back and forth, so you’re not going to find any virgin territories. Spain was a good place before it became quite crowded and salaries went up. We have a shortlist of regions where we ask, ‘Is it time to go in here now?,’” Ögren reflects.

Betsson is exploring the possibility of opening a tech hub in Argentina, a market and region that has become an engine of growth for the business. However, Ögren says, for him, time differences are an important consideration. “Because of time zones, you don’t want to be too spread out. We have a development centre in Georgia and that’s three hours [ahead of Central European time], so you start to see a little bit of a challenge.” Face-to-face meetings are important regardless of location. For instance, Ögren is based in Malta but the Swede will often stop off in Budapest on his way to the Stockholm office.

The return journey might involve swinging by the multi-brand operator’s tech hub in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn. “You need to be on the ground. It doesn’t matter how much technology you have; it’s person to person and you truly need interactions.”

Ögren’s final piece of advice is to ensure any hub feels fully integrated into the wider group: “You need to get the people feeling that they aren’t a satellite hub somewhere building a back-office system. They need to be part of a company that really loves what it is doing,” he concludes.  

Kaizen Gaming, Portugal

Launch: 2021

Tech hub: Lisbon

Chief technology officer: Dimitris Thanasopoulos

“Lisbon was the sweet spot where we could find people who are very close to our mentality and could work well with our HQ and tech hub in Athens,” says Kaizen Gaming’s CTO Dimitris Thanasopoulos, when telling EGR why the operator decided to locate its tech hub there.   

After evaluating a number of locations in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latam and Asia, Kaizen Gaming settled on Lisbon, where it already had an office, for two main reasons. The first was related to the commercial view of the market since the operator’s Betano brand is well-established in Portugal.

“We thought it would be nice to capitalise on our brand to get people in [to the company] that understand the products they are working on,” Thanasopoulos explains.

The other influencing factor was Lisbon’s talent pool, especially hailing from the local universities, how much talent is available and the salary ranges. It was also important for a remote hub to work well with Kaizen Gaming’s main hub in Greece.

For Thanasopoulos, Lisbon offers a good balance of startups, large businesses and a solid pipeline of university graduates. The biggest success for Kaizen Gaming has been recruiting from companies outside of gaming such as fintech. He stresses that the operator hires based on competencies first and foremost. “Skill is something that we evaluate, of course, but it’s not our number one decision factor on whether or not somebody can join our team.

“It’s more about how well we can work together, communication and soft skills, how easily somebody can solve a problem, work independently, get the job done and how much passion they have for their work. These are all very decisive factors that, at many points, overshadow the core technical skillset,” he adds.

The Lisbon tech hub, which opened two-and-a-half years ago, is home to 75 ‘Kaizeners’, all contributing to the total tech and product workforce of 800 across the company as a whole. In Lisbon, staff use a hybrid model of one day working in the office and four from home. This means the operator can utilise its existing office in the Portuguese capital with minimal expansion requirements.

The employees in the Lisbon hub comprise product owners, software engineers working on front-end and back-end projects, as well as site reliability and data engineers. It’s a similar mix to the Athens hub but one of the pillars for Lisbon was to make it as self-reliant as possible so the tech hub can operate independently without having to rely on the company HQ for additional resource.

While most of the Lisbon staff come from an engineering background, there is a good mix of skillsets and previous experience across a wide selection of industries, which Thanasopoulos welcomes. “I find this is very beneficial for the team overall because it gives you another asset in fresh eyes, new perspectives, new points of view, and that is very important to move forward.”

On average, salaries in the Lisbon hub are benchmarked against Greece. However, Kaizen Gaming’s CTO does acknowledge that some roles differ on pay, especially product-related roles which can warrant up to 20%-30% more in Lisbon versus Athens. When it comes to benefits packages, this varies across hubs as they are localised to the specific country and aligned with local labour laws.

With Lisbon only being four hours away by plane from the HQ in Athens, at least every quarter there are staff visits between both offices giving teams the chance to sit down and work together. There are also relocation opportunities available.

Thanasopoulos elaborates: “We have people from Athens who have moved to Lisbon permanently to assist with setting up the hub and also the day-to-day operations, as well as migrating what we call the ‘Kaizen culture’ where our values that we work with in the headquarters are taken to the tech hub in Lisbon.”

Teamwork forms an integral part of the company culture at Kaizen Gaming, alongside effective communication, the passion to deliver and get the job done, and collaboration to execute successful projects. This is facilitated through Google Meet, although Kaizen Gaming’s CTO jokes that it was hard for the team in Athens to change their ways of working and swap Greek for English to ensure successful cooperation between the two offices. “We have seen from both sides the eagerness to collaborate and that was what made the hub a very big success so far, and this is why we keep investing in Lisbon.”