iGaming Glossary

iGaming affiliate marketing is the performance channel where third-party publishers (comparison sites, streamers, tipsters, communities) drive registrations and FTDs to operators in exchange for revenue share, CPA, or hybrid deals.

Age verification is the regulatory requirement for iGaming operators to confirm every player meets the minimum legal gambling age in their jurisdiction before they can deposit, bet, or play.

AML is the regulatory framework requiring iGaming operators to detect, prevent and report suspicious transactions that could indicate money laundering, terrorism financing, or illicit source of funds.

Arbitrage betting (arbing) is a strategy where a bettor stakes on every outcome of an event across different sportsbooks at prices that guarantee a small risk-free profit regardless of result, exploiting pricing inefficiencies between operators.

ARPDAU is the average revenue generated per daily active user, the standard daily monetization pulse borrowed from mobile gaming and increasingly used in iGaming for day-level monitoring of promotions, releases and live events.

ARPU is the average NGR generated per active player in a defined period, used as a quick health metric for monetization in iGaming brands.

A bet builder is a sportsbook product that lets players combine multiple correlated selections from the same event — same-game parlay style — into a single priced bet.

Bonus abuse is the systematic exploitation of welcome and promotional offers by players using multi-accounting, low-risk wagering, or bonus-hunting tactics to extract value without genuine play.

Cash Out is a sportsbook feature that lets a player settle an unsettled bet early for a calculated current value, locking in profit or limiting loss before the event finishes.

A chargeback is a card-issuer-initiated reversal of an iGaming deposit, usually disputed as fraud or "unauthorised gambling" by the cardholder.

Churn rate is the percentage of previously active iGaming players who stop depositing or wagering within a defined window, typically 30, 60 or 90 days of inactivity.

CTR is the percentage of impressions that result in a click on an iGaming ad, creative, or organic listing, signalling creative and targeting quality.

Closing Line Value is the difference between the odds a bettor took and the final odds the market closed at, used as the gold-standard proxy for whether a wager had positive expected value.

A cool-off period is a short, voluntary pause from gambling — typically 24 hours to 6 weeks — during which a player cannot deposit or bet, used as a less drastic alternative to self-exclusion.

CPA is the total marketing spend required to acquire one new depositing player at an iGaming brand, calculated as ad spend divided by NDCs.

In iGaming, CRM is the discipline and toolset (Smartico, Optimove, Solitics, Fast Track) for orchestrating lifecycle communications, bonuses and segmentation to maximize player retention and NGR.

A crypto casino is an online gambling operator that accepts cryptocurrency (BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, LTC, TRX) as a primary or exclusive deposit and withdrawal method, often operating under offshore licences with lighter KYC than fiat-only sites.

Deposit conversion rate is the percentage of registered players who make a first deposit, the most important funnel step between registration and revenue in iGaming.

A deposit limit is a player-set or regulator-mandated maximum amount that a single iGaming account can deposit within a defined daily, weekly, or monthly window.

DGOJ is the Spanish national gambling regulator, attached to the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, responsible for licensing online operators serving Spain, enforcing advertising rules under RD 958/2020, and policing responsible gambling controls.

An FTD is the first real-money deposit a player makes on an iGaming brand and is the canonical conversion event in casino and sportsbook acquisition.

Free spins are bonus rounds on slot games where the player wagers operator-funded credits, with winnings credited as bonus money subject to wagering requirements.

GAMSTOP is the UK's national multi-operator self-exclusion scheme that lets players block themselves from every online gambling site licensed by the Gambling Commission with a single registration.

Geolocation compliance is the regulatory requirement to verify, in real time, that an iGaming player is physically located within a licensed jurisdiction before they can wager, enforced via GPS, Wi-Fi triangulation, IP and device signals.

GGR is the total amount wagered by players minus the total amount won by players, before bonuses, taxes, and provider fees — the headline revenue line in iGaming.

Handle is the total amount of money wagered by players in an iGaming product over a period, before any winnings are paid back — the gross volume metric in sportsbook reporting.

Hedging is placing a counter-bet to reduce or lock in profit/loss on an existing position, used by both players managing variance and operators managing book liability.

Hold percentage is the share of total wagered money (handle) an iGaming operator keeps as GGR, typically 6–10% for sportsbook and the inverse of RTP for casino.

House edge is the mathematical percentage advantage the operator holds over the player on each wager, equal to 100% minus the game's RTP.

A jurisdictional license is the regulatory authorisation a specific country or state grants to an iGaming operator, defining what products it can offer, to whom, under what tax and player-protection rules.

KYC is the regulated process of verifying an iGaming player's identity, age, and source of funds at signup or before withdrawal, required in every regulated gambling market.

LTV is the total net gaming revenue a player is expected to generate for an iGaming operator over their entire active lifecycle, used to validate acquisition spend.

Liquidity is the total volume of money wagered on a sportsbook market, determining how much action a book can absorb before lines must move materially.

Live (in-play) betting is sportsbook wagering placed after a sporting event has started, with constantly updated odds based on the live game state — typically 40–70% of sportsbook handle in mature markets.

A loyalty program is a tiered points-and-rewards system in iGaming that recognises wagering volume, while VIP tiers identify and manage the small share of players who generate the majority of NGR.

The MGA Licence is issued by the Malta Gaming Authority, one of Europe's longest-standing and most-recognised iGaming regulators, and is the default European licence for B2C operators and B2B suppliers serving multiple grey and regulated markets from a single Maltese entity.

NGR is GGR minus bonus cost, jackpot contributions, gaming taxes and provider fees, and represents the revenue an iGaming operator actually keeps.

The NJ DGE is the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the state agency within the Department of Law and Public Safety that regulates Atlantic City land-based casinos, New Jersey's online casino (since 2013), and online sports betting (since 2018) — one of the most mature and influential gaming regulators in the United States.

Odds compiling is the process of setting and adjusting the prices a sportsbook offers, combining statistical models, trader judgement, market signals, and risk limits.

A parlay (also "accumulator", "multibet", "combinada", "combinata") is a single bet that combines multiple selections, all of which must win for the bet to pay out, at multiplied odds.

A PSP is a third party that processes iGaming deposits and withdrawals across multiple payment methods, handling routing, currency, compliance, and fraud screening.

The player acquisition funnel is the multi-step path from ad impression to first deposit in iGaming — impression → click → landing page → registration → KYC → cashier → FTD — with measurable drop-off at each step.

A player cohort is a group of iGaming players who share a defining event in the same time window (typically NDCs in a calendar month), tracked together over time for LTV, retention and channel analysis.

Props markets are sportsbook offerings on outcomes other than the final result — player statistics, game-state events, novelty outcomes — and are the highest-growth, highest-margin segment of modern sportsbooks.

Provably fair is a cryptographic technique used by crypto casinos to let players independently verify that each game outcome was determined before the bet was placed and not manipulated by the operator.

Reactivation is the CRM process of bringing dormant iGaming players back to deposit and play, usually via segmented bonus offers, push and email triggered after a defined inactivity period.

A regulated market has a national license framework iGaming operators must hold to legally accept players; a grey market lacks specific iGaming legislation but is not actively criminalized — operators serve players via offshore licenses (Curaçao, Anjouan, Costa Rica).

Responsible Gambling is the framework of tools, policies and player protections — deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion, affordability checks — that operators are legally required to provide to identify and protect at-risk players.

Retargeting is the practice of re-engaging registered or visiting users with paid ads to drive their first deposit or next deposit, using platform pixels or CRM-matched audiences.

Retention rate is the percentage of a player cohort that returns to deposit or play in subsequent periods (D1, D7, D30, M3, M6), and is the leading indicator of LTV.

RTP is the theoretical percentage of total wagered money a casino game pays back to players over long-run play, typically 92–97% for online slots.

A revenue share (rev-share) deal pays an iGaming affiliate a percentage of the net gaming revenue generated by their referred players, typically 25–45%, for the lifetime of those accounts.

Sportsbook risk management is the discipline of controlling exposure, liability, and variance across markets through pricing, limits, layoffs, and player segmentation.

A Same Game Parlay is a multi-leg bet built from correlated selections within a single event (one NFL game, one soccer match), priced by the sportsbook's correlation engine rather than naive odds multiplication.

Sanctions screening is the mandatory check of every iGaming player against international sanctions, PEP, and adverse-media lists at onboarding and on an ongoing basis.

Segmentation is the practice of grouping iGaming players by behaviour, value, lifecycle stage, and risk to deliver targeted CRM, bonus, and product experiences.

Self-exclusion is a Responsible Gambling tool that lets a player formally block themselves from an operator or jurisdiction-wide registry for a fixed period (typically 6 months to permanent).

A sharp player is a long-term winning bettor whose action moves sportsbook lines and who systematically extracts value through better information, modelling, or line shopping.

A slot aggregator is a platform (SoftSwiss, Pragmatic Play Aggregator, Relax Gaming, Everymatrix, BetConstruct) that integrates dozens of slot studios into a single API, letting iGaming operators access thousands of games with one integration.

Source of Funds is the regulatory requirement for iGaming operators to verify, through documentation, that a player's deposits come from legitimate, declarable income.

SPA/MF is the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas of Brazil's Ministério da Fazenda, the federal authority that regulates and licenses fixed-odds betting and online gaming under Law 14.790/2023, with the regulated market live since January 2025.

The sportsbook margin (also "vig" or "overround") is the theoretical edge a bookmaker builds into odds, calculated as the sum of implied probabilities minus 100%.

A sticky bonus is a casino bonus where the bonus credit itself cannot be withdrawn — only the winnings generated from it — designed to protect the operator from bonus-abuse withdrawal patterns common in non-sticky welcome offers.

iGaming markets are informally tiered by player value, payment quality, and regulatory maturity — Tier 1 (UK, DE, US states, Nordics) commands highest LTV and CPA, Tier 3 (emerging Africa, parts of Asia) the lowest.

Transaction monitoring is the automated and manual surveillance of deposit, bet, and withdrawal patterns to detect money laundering, fraud, and at-risk gambling behaviour.

A VIP Host is the dedicated relationship manager who owns retention, reactivation and bespoke offers for a small portfolio (typically 80–250) of an iGaming operator's highest-value players.

A wagering requirement is the number of times a player must wager their bonus (and sometimes deposit) before bonus winnings can be withdrawn — typically expressed as 20×, 35×, 50× the bonus amount.

A welcome bonus is the promotional offer presented to new players to convert registrations into first deposits, typically a deposit match, free spins package, or risk-free bet.