The Swedish company NetEnt has one of the more interesting histories in the online gambling space, stretching all the way back to 1963 with the founding by Bill Lindwall and Rolf Lundström of AB Restaurang Rouletter, a company that provided slot machines to restaurants in Sweden. That organization partnered with AB Roulett konsult & Spelautomater, and the combined entity rebranded as Cherryföretagen, or simply Cherry, in 1972.
Fast forward over 20 years, and in 1996, Lindwall’s son Pontus founded NetEnt, short for Net Entertainment, a few short years before the first online casino opened for business. In the two decades since, NetEnt has cemented itself as one of the industry’s leading software providers, acquiring casino licenses in locations around the world and releasing multiple new online slots every month.
Between being a family affair and originating from one of Sweden’s best-known casino gaming organizations, NetEnt certainly had big shoes to fill, but it walked its own path and became a juggernaut in its own right. If that’s not inspiring, we don’t know what is.