A sweepstakes software distributor resells someone else's platform. You sign with the distributor, the distributor holds the relationship with the software owner, and your product sits one contractual step away from the people who write the code. A platform licence removes that step: you configure the product yourself from the owner's console and raise issues with the owner directly. Distributors suit operators who want a local intermediary, bundled hardware or an existing route to market. A direct platform licence suits operators who want to configure brands, wallets and rules themselves and to escalate without a middle party. iPlaySkillz is licensed directly, from one console.
Distributor, aggregator, platform: what each one is selling
Distributor or reseller
Access to a third party's platform, often bundled with hardware, local support or a route to market. You escalate to the distributor, who then contacts the software owner. Change requests queue behind the distributor's other clients, and you rarely see the platform roadmap.
Aggregator with a wallet
A games catalogue plus a light wallet and back office. You escalate to the aggregator. Redemption review, player protection, retention and multi-brand operations are usually thin or bought in from third parties.
Direct platform licence
The configured product itself, launched and operated from the owner's console. You escalate to the platform owner. You own configuration, so your team has to learn the console. iPlaySkillz is this route: games, a dual-currency wallet, entry routes, redemption review, retention and back office per brand, with skill games native and aggregated content through a provider module.
Six questions that tell you which route fits
- Who fixes a ledger defect, and how many parties sit between you and that person?
- Can you create a brand, set its domain, theme, legal pages and geo rules yourself, or does every change become a support ticket?
- Does the contract name the software owner, or only the reseller?
- If the distributor relationship ends, what happens to your brand, your players and your data?
- Are entry routes configurable per brand without a developer, and is every credit auditable?
- Can you watch a brand being created, a game run producing its ledger row, and a redemption moving through review, in one live session?
What the distributor model does well
An intermediary is genuinely useful when you need someone in your own market and language, when hardware sits alongside the software, or when the distributor already owns the route to your players. None of that is a weakness. The question is whether you are paying the intermediary for reach you need, or for access you could hold directly.
Known limits, stated plainly: brands run in a single region, the brand slug cannot be changed after creation, and economy seeds are shared by reference across brands. We do not publish launch timelines, because they depend on your rules, market, content set and legal review. Software does not hold regulatory status; an operator in a market can.