Industry glossary
The terms operators, suppliers, regulators and affiliates use every day, defined in plain language. Where a term has a formula, the link takes you to a calculator that works it out.
A
- Accumulator (parlay)
- A single bet that combines several selections; every selection must win, and the odds multiply together. see →
- Admin fee
- A percentage an operator deducts from net revenue before paying an affiliate's revenue share, meant to cover costs such as payment fees and taxes. see →
- ADR (alternative dispute resolution)
- An independent service that settles a complaint between a player and a licensed operator after the operator's own complaints process has been used.
- Affiliate
- A publisher or marketer paid by operators for referring new customers, usually by CPA, revenue share or a mix of both. see →
- Aggregator
- A B2B platform that connects many game studios to an operator through a single integration, handling content delivery, reporting and often billing. see →
- American odds (moneyline)
- An odds format used in North America: a positive number is the profit on a 100 stake, a negative number is the stake needed to win 100. see →
- AML (anti-money laundering)
- The controls that stop gambling accounts being used to launder money: customer checks, transaction monitoring and reports of suspicious activity to the authorities. see →
- Arbitrage betting
- Backing every outcome of an event at different bookmakers when their combined prices guarantee a small profit whatever happens. see →
- ARPU
- Average revenue per user: revenue in a period divided by the number of active customers in that period. see →
- Asian handicap
- A betting line that removes the draw by giving one side a notional head start, including half and quarter goals, so most bets have two outcomes.
B
- B2B
- Business-to-business: companies that supply operators, such as game studios, platforms, data feeds, payments and compliance tools. see →
- B2C
- Business-to-consumer: the operator that holds the customer relationship and, where required, the consumer licence.
- Back and lay
- On a betting exchange, backing means betting that an outcome will happen and laying means betting that it will not; the layer acts as the bookmaker.
- Bet builder
- A product that lets a customer combine several outcomes from the same match into one bet, priced with the correlation between them in mind.
- Betting exchange
- A platform where customers bet against each other rather than against a bookmaker; the exchange earns a commission on net winnings.
- Bingo (75-ball and 90-ball)
- A draw game where players mark numbers on tickets as they are called; 90-ball dominates in the UK and Europe, 75-ball in North America. see →
- Bonus abuse
- Claiming promotions in ways the terms forbid, for example through multiple accounts, to extract value without the intended play. see →
C
- Cash out
- An offer to settle a bet before the event ends, for an amount the bookmaker prices from the current odds.
- Chargeback
- A card payment reversed by the customer's bank after a dispute; frequent chargebacks raise costs and can end a merchant account. see →
- Churn
- The share of active customers who stop playing in a period; its inverse drives how long a customer stays and what they are worth. see →
- Closing line value (CLV)
- How the price a bettor took compares with the final price before the event starts; consistently beating the closing line is a sign of skill.
- Concession
- A right to operate granted by the state for a fixed term, often after a tender and for a fee, as in Italy and Macau.
- CPA (cost per acquisition)
- A one-off fee an operator pays an affiliate for each referred customer who meets agreed conditions, typically a first deposit. see →
- Crash game
- An instant game in which a multiplier rises from 1x until it stops at a random point; players must cash out before the stop to win. see →
- Cross-sell
- Moving a customer from one product to another, for example from sports betting to casino, a key lever for lifetime value.
D
- Decimal odds
- The total return per unit staked, including the stake: odds of 2.50 return 2.50 for every 1 bet. see →
- Deposit limit
- A cap on how much a customer can deposit in a day, week or month, set by the customer or imposed by rules or the operator.
- DFS (daily fantasy sports)
- Contests in which players draft virtual teams of real athletes for a short period and win prizes based on their statistics. see →
- DNS blocking
- An order requiring internet providers to stop resolving the domains of unlicensed gambling sites; used in Norway, France and elsewhere.
- Duty of care
- An operator's obligation to spot and act on signs of gambling harm, for example by limiting or contacting customers at risk.
E
- Each-way bet
- Two equal bets in one: one on a selection to win and one on it to finish in the places, paid at a fraction of the win odds.
- EDD (enhanced due diligence)
- Deeper checks on higher-risk customers, such as heavy spenders or politically exposed persons, including their source of funds. see →
- Esports betting
- Betting on competitive video game tournaments such as Counter-Strike, League of Legends and Dota 2. see →
F
- Fixed odds
- A bet whose price is agreed when it is placed, unlike pool betting where the payout depends on the total staked. see →
- Fractional odds
- An odds format used in the UK and Ireland showing profit relative to stake: 5/2 pays 5 for every 2 staked, plus the stake. see →
- Free bet
- A promotional bet funded by the operator; usually only the winnings are paid, not the free stake itself.
- FTD (first-time depositor)
- A customer making their first deposit; the usual trigger for a CPA payment and a core acquisition metric. see →
G
- Game certification
- Independent testing that a game's random number generator and mathematics behave as declared before it can go live in a regulated market.
- Geolocation (geofencing)
- Technology that checks where a customer is before allowing a bet, required where licences are granted by state or province. see →
- GGR (gross gaming revenue)
- Stakes minus winnings paid out: what an operator keeps from gambling before bonuses, taxes and costs. see →
H
- Handle (turnover)
- The total amount staked in a period. Revenue is handle multiplied by hold. see →
- Hit frequency
- How often a slot spin returns any win at all; it says nothing about the size of the wins. see →
- Hold
- GGR as a share of the amount staked. A sportsbook's hold reflects its margin and how results fell. see →
- House edge
- The share of every stake a game is expected to keep over the long run; equal to one minus the return to player. see →
- Hybrid deal
- An affiliate agreement that pays a smaller CPA plus a revenue share on the same customers. see →
I
- In-play betting
- Betting on an event while it is in progress, with prices that update continuously; restricted or banned online in some markets, such as Australia.
- Integrated resort
- A large complex combining a casino with hotels, entertainment and conventions, the model used in Singapore, Macau and planned in Japan and the UAE. see →
- Integrity monitoring
- Services that watch betting patterns for signs of match fixing and alert sports bodies and regulators.
J
- Jackpot (progressive)
- A prize that grows with each stake until it is won, often pooled across many operators through a network. see →
K
- KYC (know your customer)
- Verifying a customer's identity, age and address, and in some cases their source of funds, before or soon after they play. see →
L
- Land-based
- Gambling in physical venues such as casinos, betting shops, arcades and bingo halls. see →
- Liability
- What a sportsbook would have to pay out if a given outcome happens; traders manage it by moving prices and limiting stakes.
- Licence (B2C and B2B)
- Permission from a regulator to offer gambling to consumers (B2C) or to supply operators with games or platforms (B2B). see →
- Live casino (live dealer)
- Table games streamed from a studio with a real dealer, while bets are placed through the operator's platform. see →
- Lottery betting (secondary lottery)
- Betting on the outcome of an official lottery draw with an operator rather than buying a ticket from the lottery itself. see →
- LTV (lifetime value)
- The total net revenue a customer is expected to generate over their whole relationship with an operator. see →
M
- Margin (overround, vig)
- The bookmaker's built-in edge: the amount by which a market's implied probabilities add up to more than 100%. see →
- Market
- A set of outcomes a customer can bet on, such as match result, total goals or first scorer.
- Match fixing
- Manipulating the result or an event within a match, often to profit from bets placed on it.
- Monopoly
- A regime in which the law reserves gambling, or one kind of it, for one state-owned or state-appointed operator. see →
N
- NDC (new depositing customer)
- Another name for a first-time depositor, used widely in affiliate reporting. see →
- Negative carryover
- In revenue share deals, whether a month in which players won is carried into the next month's commission; many programmes reset it monthly. see →
- NGR (net gaming revenue)
- GGR after bonuses and, depending on the contract, gaming taxes and fees; the usual base for affiliate revenue share. see →
O
- Odds boost
- A promotion that raises the price on a selection above the bookmaker's normal odds.
- Open banking payments
- Account-to-account payments authorised through the customer's bank, used for fast deposits and withdrawals with verified identity. see →
- Operator
- The company that offers gambling to customers under its own brand and licence.
P
- PAM (player account management)
- The core platform that manages customer accounts, wallets, KYC, limits and reporting for an operator. see →
- Pari-mutuel (pool betting)
- Betting in which all stakes go into a pool that, after the operator's deduction, is shared among winning tickets. see →
- Payment blocking
- Rules that forbid banks and payment firms from processing transactions with unlicensed gambling sites.
- PEP (politically exposed person)
- A person with a prominent public role, or their close associates, who must receive enhanced due diligence under anti-money laundering rules.
- Player protection
- The tools and duties that reduce gambling harm: limits, time-outs, reality checks, self-exclusion and interventions. see →
- Point-of-consumption tax
- A tax charged where the customer is located, not where the operator is based; the standard model in regulated online markets.
- Prediction market
- A market in which people trade contracts that pay out if an event happens, so prices can be read as probabilities. see →
- Provably fair
- A method used by some crypto games that lets players check with cryptographic hashes that a result was fixed before they bet. see →
- PSP (payment service provider)
- A company that processes card, wallet and bank payments for operators, often across several payment methods. see →
R
- Rake
- The fee a poker operator takes from each cash-game pot or tournament buy-in; poker's main source of revenue. see →
- Reality check
- A pop-up that reminds a customer how long they have been playing and how much they have won or lost.
- An affiliate deal paying a percentage of the net revenue the referred customers generate, for as long as they play. see →
- RGS (remote game server)
- The server that runs a studio's games and returns results to the operator's platform, which holds the player's wallet. see →
- RNG (random number generator)
- The software that produces unpredictable results for digital games; tested and certified in regulated markets.
- RTP (return to player)
- The share of all money staked on a game that is paid back as winnings over the long run. see →
S
- Safer gambling
- The industry's term for policies and tools that reduce gambling harm; also called responsible gambling. see →
- Scratch card
- An instant lottery ticket, physical or digital, whose result is revealed immediately. see →
- Self-exclusion
- A customer's request to be barred from gambling for a set period; national registers apply it across every licensed operator. see →
- Settlement
- Deciding a bet as won, lost or void once the result is official, and paying it out.
- Skill gaming
- Real-money competitions in games where skill mainly decides the winner; many countries still treat them as gambling. see →
- Casino-style games played with virtual coins that cannot be cashed out, usually monetised by selling coin packs. see →
- Source of funds (SOF) and source of wealth (SOW)
- Evidence of where the money a customer gambles with comes from, requested at higher spending levels. see →
- Sportsbook
- An operator's betting product for sport, or the team that prices and manages it. see →
- Stake limit
- A maximum amount per bet or per spin, set by the operator for risk reasons or by law, such as the slot stake caps in Great Britain and Germany.
- Sub-affiliate
- An affiliate recruited by another affiliate, who earns a share of the recruited affiliate's commission.
- Suspicious activity report
- A report an operator must file with the authorities when it suspects that funds come from crime.
- Sweepstakes casino
- A casino-style site in the United States that uses a dual-currency model to argue it runs promotional sweepstakes rather than gambling; banned in a growing number of states. see →
T
- Theoretical win (theo)
- What a game is expected to earn from a customer's play: amount staked times house edge. Casinos use it to value players. see →
- Totals (over/under)
- A market on whether a statistic, such as total goals or points, will be above or below a line set by the bookmaker.
- Trading (sportsbook)
- Setting and adjusting prices and limits to manage a sportsbook's risk and margin.
- Turnkey platform
- A complete operator solution, from account management to games, payments and back office, run by one supplier. see →
- Turnover tax
- A tax on the amount staked rather than on gross gaming revenue; it can make low-margin products unprofitable.
V
- Void bet
- A bet cancelled and refunded, for example because an event did not take place or a price was an obvious error.
- Volatility (variance)
- How widely a game's results swing around its average return; high-volatility slots pay larger wins less often. see →
W
- Wagering requirement
- The amount a customer must stake before bonus funds, or winnings from them, can be withdrawn. see →
- White label
- A brand run on another company's licence and platform; the brand owner handles marketing while the provider runs operations. see →
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