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Boss Media
At this point in 1996, Joel Wikkel founded Boss Media AB with the mission to license the casino games software to online gambling operators and earn from up-front fees and revenue shares.
The casino games would be delivered to the players as downloadable files and would interact with a remote gaming server. The Boss Media development team would continue with building the games, and the server systems would be built by Medströms Media AB.
To report on the player and game statistics, Medströms Media used Microsoft Access to replicate the game server’s Sybase database, which proved to be a quick, but limited solution.
“The MS Access tools were tied to our network so they could only be used from the office in Antigua. Hence, it was impossible to white-label.”
They would solve this by building a back office system called Pit Boss.
Using Microsoft tools: .ASP and IIS, Henrik created Pit Boss as a new component of the system. He eliminated the scalability problem by accessing the Sybase DB directly.
“The IIS (Microsoft Internet Information Server) I setup was accessible for everyone with the correct username and password. We wrote a pretty cool reporting package on it where you could drill down to the players transaction level and monitor your casino in real-time.”
Pit Boss was a great solution solution that provided a comprehensive set of management tools for back-office staff, white label operators and stakeholders. It would continue to be developed over many years.
Page List
- Interview – Henrik Sandin – Operations
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Hurricane Georges
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Norway
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Norsk Tipping
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Antigua Again
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Boss Media’s Home Markets
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – Boss Media Devoured
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – After Boss Media
- Interview – Henrick Sandin – End
Gold Club Casino
Boss Media’s first licensee was its own. It was called Gold Club Casino, www.goldclubcasino.com, and was to be licensed and hosted in Antigua.
So in 1997, Boss Media set up shop in Antigua as Boss Casinos. A colleague of Henrik’s, Henrick Widov, was dispatched to set up a datacenter in Antigua, to host the servers and to connect them to the internet, which he did. Office space was found in the famed Woods center in Antigua. Computers and network were installed.
However, during Christmas 1997, Henrick Widov wanted to return to Sweden. Henrik Sandin thought he knew enough about computer systems now to be able to take on the challenge. So, he moved to Antigua and got to grips with the situation there. Eventually, he took over the whole operation.
All went well and their first complete online casino- goldclubcasino.com – was online on 12th December, 1997.
Henrick liked Antigua and decided to stay there. He would do so for many years. “Bit warmer than Sweden.”
Boss Media’s First Client
Pursuant to Joel’s vision to scale his company by providing their casino games to other operators, the first casino client to go live with Boss Media’s software was USACasino.com.
“Brian Androlia, James Blackledge and Matt Chambers of USA casino, were our first customer. They arrived in Antigua, on February 26, 1998, for our meeting when there was a solar eclipse.
We went to Shirley Heights lookout, so we could have a better of view of the eclipse. And we were the only people there wearing suits. The rest were in shorts and t-shirts. But we were there for business, even if it was 32 degrees Celsius. Joel wanted us to look professional. Hence, he insisted that we wore suits.
“They purchased the casino which was launched on May 25th,1998. They quickly got on the right track and made a lot of money without any effort. Later, they bought another casino, the NewYorkCasino.com.“
The USA Casino was also the first customer to use WebDollar, the Boss Media’s payment company.
The WebDollar payments system was created by Boss Media and was supplied to their operators as a part of the Boss Media system.
Regulatory environment issues and competition from more versatile payment solutions eventually led to its decline.
Boss Media would go on to host 36 different gaming sites.
