Briefly: a country manager is a small CEO of a single country. They’re responsible not for a channel or a department but for the market’s P&L: local payments, the support language, local regulation, marketing and the team on the ground. The range in Malta and Cyprus runs from €4.5–6K at entry level to €15–22K for a regional director, plus an annual bonus of 30–100% of base salary. The key requirement isn’t a degree but real knowledge of the country.

Most roles in gambling are organised vertically: there’s CRM, there are affiliates, there are payments, and each owns its own slice. The country manager cuts across — they take one country and own it entirely. If a brand flops in Brazil, it’s not the media buyer or the product manager who’ll be held to account: it’s the country manager. The role is rare and expensive — here’s what’s behind it.

What a country manager does

Formally — “entry and growth strategy for the assigned market”. In practice it’s four conversations they have every week:

  • With product — about localisation. In Brazil half of all deposits go through Pix, in India through UPI, in Turkey through local transfers, and without them there is simply no market. Add local sports (cricket instead of football) and the games people there actually play.
  • With legal and compliance — about the rules. What can be shown in advertising, which bonuses are allowed, what data to collect during verification. It’s different in every country, and a mistake costs a licence, not a fine.
  • With marketing and affiliates — about acquisition. Which channels work in this market, what a player costs, which local partners and streamers bring traffic.
  • With head office — about money. Once a quarter they come with the numbers: how much was invested, how much came back, why the market is growing slower than planned and what it would take to speed up.

The team is a separate part of the job. In a mature market a country manager has 5–30 direct and indirect reports: local marketing, support in the country’s language, sometimes their own CRM. In a new market they’re often the first and only employee and spend the first six months hiring themselves.

A country manager’s week

MONThe week’s numbers: deposits, active base, registration conversion, payment success rate for each provider. Anything that dipped goes on the list of questions.
TUEProduct: sprint priorities. A local payment method, interface translation, launching a game provider that’s popular in this market.
WEDPartners: affiliates, streamers, local media. Terms, payout disputes, new deals.
THUTeam and hiring: interviews for local support, a one-on-one with marketing, reviewing player complaints that reached escalation.
FRIThe report to head office and defending next month’s budget. This is where the role looks exactly like a CEO’s job — only for a country, not a company.

KPIs: what they’re held accountable for

A country manager has no “metric of their own” like portfolio NGR for a VIP manager or ROAS for a media buyer. They have a P&L, and everything sits inside it at once:

  • Market NGR and market share — the main number; the annual bonus is tied to it.
  • CAC and ROI — what a player costs and how many months it takes to pay back.
  • Active base growth — not registrations, but people who play and come back.
  • Regulation — meeting licence requirements and local advertising rules. The metric is binary: either everything is clean, or the rest of the list doesn’t matter.
How it differs from Head of Marketing: marketing owns a channel across all countries; a country manager owns one country across all channels. That’s why the first has acquisition cost as a KPI, while for the second marketing is just one lever alongside payments, product and support.

How much a country manager earns

Ranges by region and grade are from our role directory, gross amounts per month:

LevelMalta, CyprusPoland, Romania, BalticsRemote, Tbilisi, Yerevan
Entry, small market€4.5–6K€3.5–4.8K€3–4.2K
Middle, growing market€7–9.5K€5.5–7.5K€4.8–6.8K
Senior, large market€10–14K€8–11K€7–10K
Regional Director€15–22K€12–17K€11–15K

On top comes an annual bonus of 30–100% of base salary depending on market results, and at regional director level options or a profit share are often added. For comparison: Head of Casino in Malta earns €8–11K at middle level, Head of Affiliates — €5–7K at senior level. A country manager sits between a functional director and top management: below a COO (€12–16K at middle level) but above the head of any single function.

What pushes the range up: market size (Brazil pays more than Croatia), stage (a launch from scratch pays better than maintaining a mature market) and the rarity of the language pair. A manager with Turkish, Vietnamese or Brazilian Portuguese and gambling experience is a one-off find.

Which markets are hiring right now

As of September 13, 2026 SpinHire lists 15 open country manager vacancies, and the geography of the demand says more about the market than any forecast. Companies are hiring for Vietnam, New Zealand, Turkey, Denmark and Sweden, DACH, Greece, Belgium and Brazil — that is, for Asian and Latin American growth markets plus regulated Europe, where you need someone who knows the local rules.

Eight of the fifteen positions are based in Malta: the typical setup is an office in St. Julian’s and a market in the other hemisphere. Employers include Betsson Group, Kaizen Gaming (Betano), Pragmatic Play, SkillOnNet and Brazino777. And one more detail that explains a lot: none of these vacancies publishes a salary range — at P&L level pay is always negotiated separately.

Who gets hired and how to get in

Requirement number one is worded the same way in every vacancy: knowledge of the market. Not “C1 language level”, but an understanding of how people in that country pay, what they play, what counts as normal advertising and whom they trust. That’s why the people hired most often grew up in the market or lived there for several years.

  1. From market marketing. The most common path: someone ran acquisition for the country as Head of Marketing or a strong media buyer, already understands player economics and picks up product and payments on the way.
  2. From operations and CRM. CRM manager or a retention lead who owned a market segment knows the player base from the inside — all they’re missing is a budget and hiring.
  3. From affiliates. An affiliate lead usually already has a network of local partners — half of a new market launch.
  4. From offline. In new markets companies hire managers from local land-based betting chains: they know the player and the regulator, and pick up the online specifics on the job.

What they’ll ask at the interview: how you calculate acquisition payback, which payment methods are mandatory in your market and why, what can’t be shown in advertising under local law, how you would launch a country with budget X and a team of three. And always — why your previous market grew or didn’t. The role requires no formal certificates: they look at the numbers you managed.

Where you go next

The track is short and lucrative: country manager → Regional Director over a group of countries → Managing Director of a brand → COO. Sideways moves go to Head of Casino or Head of Marketing — from a country’s P&L to an entire function. After two or three launches some people start their own project: the experience of “building a market from scratch” is closer to that than any other role in the industry.

The flip side: if your only market gets banned, you’ll either have to retrain for a neighbouring country or go back to a function. That’s why strong country managers collect two or three very different markets over their career.

Open P&L-level positions are in the section jobs (the “Top management” category, 462 positions today), and the full role profile with responsibilities, KPIs and ranges is on the page a country manager.

FAQ

How much does a country manager earn in iGaming?

In Malta and Cyprus the range runs from €4.5–6K at entry level to €10–14K for a strong manager of a large market and €15–22K at regional director level. In Poland, Romania and the Baltics — €3.5–4.8K at entry level and €8–11K at senior level; remote — €3–4.2K and €7–10K respectively. On top comes an annual bonus of 30–100% of base salary depending on market results.

How does a country manager differ from a Head of Marketing?

A Head of Marketing owns an acquisition channel across all countries; a country manager owns one country entirely: product, payments, support, marketing, regulation and the P&L. The marketer’s KPIs are CAC and traffic volume; the country manager’s are market NGR and market share, and marketing is just one of their levers.

Do you need to live in the country you’re responsible for?

Not always, but employers strongly prefer candidates who grew up in the market or lived there for several years. Half of the vacancies are set up the other way round: the office is in Malta or Cyprus, and the market is Brazil, Vietnam or Turkey. The requirement stays the same, though: native-level command of the market’s language and an understanding of how people there pay and what they play.

Which roles do country managers come from?

Most often from three places: market marketing (Head of Marketing or a strong media buyer for the country), operations and CRM, where the person already owned a player segment, and affiliate management, where there’s a ready network of local partners. Less often — from product and from local land-based bookmakers moving online.

Where does a country manager grow?

The track is short and lucrative: country manager, Regional Director over a group of countries, Managing Director of a brand and then COO. Sideways moves go to Head of Casino or Head of Marketing, and some leave to launch their own project — the experience of launching a market from scratch is the closest preparation for that.

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