Beter Live launch their Romanian studio

Beter Live announced recently that their new Romanian dealer studio is now up and running.

Which does beg the question, who are Beter Live?

Beter Live is the live dealer division of Beter, a Kyiv Ukraine based next-gen (e-sports etc) betting solutions provider. Beter itself is quite a young company with only 15 employees in 2019. Beter Live, is still in its infancy. But growing fast.

Beter Live Key Milestones

Beter Live is barely more than a year old. Its launch was announced to the world November 2021.

The division is headed up by Anna Vikmane (ex-Playtech), and their first games were live streamed from a purpose built studio in Beter’s Kyiv headquarters.

By October 2022, Beter Live had secured a Malta MGA license and were already running a solid range of live games.

In April this year the ribbon was cut on their new Romanian studio, comprising 2 distinct table areas within the one complex in Bucharest. There’s an area containing European themed tables/games and another dedicated to Asian favourites like Andar Bahar, Teen Patti and Sic Bo.

With the new studios in full swing, game range is now quite extensive. Live blackjack (regular and speed deal), roulette (European, French, Auto), baccarat, Top Card, Dragon Tiger, Andar Bahar, Bet on Teen Pati and Sic Bo are all on offer. They have even launched their own blackjack and roulette based game shows –  Gravity Blackjack and Gravity Roulette.

This is a lot to achieve in a little over a year. A comparable growth trajectory to fellow live games provider OnAir Entertainment who have also come a long way in very little time.

But Beter’s achievements are all the more remarkable considering the environment in which they were operating in. Within months of launch, their Kyiv studio was in the firing line of Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Beter Lives Kyiv headquarters and maiden studio, which was under Russian missile attack in Feb 2022

Operating in a war zone

This harrowing time is described by a piece written on the company website by director Anna Vikmane.

In Gibraltar negotiating client deals on Feb 24 2022, she received a call from her studio operations manager to say that missile explosions were being heard outside. Not your every day work call.

Most businesses have risk mitigation strategies in place to keep the ship afloat in the event of financial shocks, malicious cyber hacks and the like. Few have to come up with plans to cope with a Russian invasion. Beter did.

What followed was the wholesale evacuation of the businesses’ entire staff. At the time Beter Live had around 300 personnel. For a few weeks they remained away from their workplace, either bunkered down or in some cases going to war to defend their city and country.

But remarkably through this time, Beter was still able to continuously live stream its product for clients, taking bets while missiles landed nearby – albeit via a single game – Auto Roulette which could be remotely controlled and maintained. As the situation in Kyiv stabilised (relatively speaking), a return to fuller operations was possible.

There is a saying, diamonds are produced under intense pressure.

Launching a business in a very competitive industry, running it in an active war zone during its first year! That’s some pressure.

One of the Beter Live blackjack tables…

Beter Live Andar Bahar and Teen Patti, as played on mobile…

Longer term risk mitigation was one of the motivations for a second studio in another country.

Now with the Romanian studio up and running it would seem the only thing that could derail Beter Live is successful invasions of both Ukraine and Romania!