The reference

iGaming Glossary

The vocabulary of the industry, including the terms it uses most often without defining: GGR, channelling, overround, negative carryover, point of consumption, wagering requirement and the rest.

Last reviewed 27 October 2026

Definitions are written to be usable rather than exhaustive. Where a term needs more than a sentence to be understood properly, the entry links to the explainer that covers it in full.

A

Account limitation also: stake restriction: Restricting the stake a particular customer may place, typically applied to consistently successful bettors. Lawful in most markets and widely criticised.
Acquiring bank also: acquirer: The bank that holds the merchant account and receives card payments on an operator's behalf. Because gambling is classed as high risk, the number of acquirers willing to serve the sector is limited, which raises cost and reduces redundancy.
Affiliate: A publisher paid by results for sending customers to an operator, through revenue share, a fee per acquired customer or a mixture. Licensed in its own right in some markets. See how affiliate deals work.
Affordability check also: financial risk check: A check triggered by losses over a defined period to establish whether a customer can sustain them. Overlaps almost entirely with source-of-funds work.
Aggregator also: content aggregator: A supplier that gives an operator access to games from many studios through a single integration, handling certification, configuration and revenue settlement. See how aggregation works.
AML also: anti-money laundering: The body of obligations requiring an operator to identify customers, establish where their money came from, monitor activity and report suspicion. See the full explanation.
Amusement with prizes also: AWP: Low-stake machines regulated separately from casino gaming in most European countries, typically found in pubs and arcades.
Arbitrage also: arbing: Backing every outcome of an event across different operators at prices that guarantee a profit whatever happens. Lawful in most markets but routinely met with account restriction.
Autoplay: A slot feature that runs a set number of spins without further input. Prohibited in several markets because it removes the decision to continue from each round.

B

B2B licence also: supplier licence: Authorisation held by a company that supplies operators rather than players: platform providers, game studios, live casino suppliers and, in some markets, payment firms and affiliates.
B2C licence also: operator licence: Authorisation held by the company that faces the player, takes the stake and holds the account. It carries the consumer-protection and anti-money-laundering obligations.
Bet builder also: same game multi: A bet combining several outcomes within one event. Pricing is difficult because the legs are correlated rather than independent.
Betting exchange: A marketplace that matches customers against each other and takes a commission on winnings, rather than pricing markets and carrying the risk itself.
Blacklist also: register of blocked domains: A published list of unlicensed operators that providers must block, maintained by regulators in Poland, Greece, Colombia and elsewhere.
Bonus abuse also: advantage play: Systematic exploitation of promotional offers, from collecting welcome bonuses across many operators to organised use of duplicate identities. Countered by terms, detection and account limits.
Bonus buy also: feature buy: A slot option allowing a player to pay a multiple of the stake to enter the feature round immediately. Prohibited in several licensed markets.

C

Cash out: Settling an open bet before the event finishes, at a value the operator calculates from the current price with a margin applied.
Certification also: testing: Independent laboratory testing of a game, random number generator or platform against a jurisdiction's technical standard, required before anything may be offered. See the process.
Change of control: A change in who controls a licensed company, normally requiring approval from every regulator that licenses it. The reason gambling acquisitions take a long time to close.
Channelling also: channelisation: The share of a country's gambling activity that goes through licensed operators. The central measure of whether a licensing regime is working.
Chargeback: A card payment reversed at the cardholder's request. Costly for operators because the funds have usually already been staked, and a frequent fraud vector.
Churn: The rate at which customers stop playing. In a mature market, most acquisition spend replaces churn rather than growing the customer base.
Class 2 licence (Romania): The Romanian licence for suppliers, payment processors, affiliates and media agencies serving the market. One of the few regimes licensing affiliates directly.
Cluster pays: A slot mechanic awarding wins for groups of adjacent matching symbols rather than along fixed lines, usually combined with tumbling symbols.
Compact also: tribal-state compact: An agreement between a tribe and a state setting the terms on which gaming may be offered, including revenue sharing and scope.
Concession: A time-limited contract to operate, awarded by public tender at a fixed price, used instead of open licensing in markets such as Italy and Colombia.
Conduct and manage: The Canadian requirement that lawful gaming be conducted and managed by the province, which is why Ontario operators contract with a provincial entity rather than holding a licence in the European sense.
Cooling-off period: Either a short break a player can take from an account, or a rule requiring an operator that served a market before licensing to wait before it can be licensed there.
Cost per acquisition (marketing) also: CAC: The total marketing cost of acquiring one depositing customer. Rises sharply as a market matures and new customers become scarce.
CPA also: cost per acquisition: An affiliate or marketing arrangement paying a fixed fee for each customer who registers and meets a qualifying condition, regardless of what that customer is subsequently worth.
Cruks: The Dutch central exclusion register. Entry can be requested by the customer, by someone close to them, or imposed by the regulator.

D

Dealer also: croupier: The person running a table game. In live casino the dealer works in a studio on camera, under the same procedural supervision as on a casino floor.
Deposit limit: A cap on how much a customer may deposit in a period. Per-operator in most markets, and cross-operator in Germany, where a central system applies one limit across all licensees.
Dormant account: An account inactive for a defined period. Rules on notifying the customer and handling the remaining balance vary by jurisdiction.
Duty of care: An obligation to act on indications of gambling harm rather than wait for a customer to ask for help. Central to Swedish supervision and increasingly common elsewhere.

F

Fit and proper also: suitability: The assessment of whether an applicant and the individuals behind it are suitable to hold a licence, covering finances, associations and history.
Free bet also: bet credit: A promotional stake that returns winnings but not the stake itself, so its expected cost to the operator is well below face value.
Free spins: Either a slot feature round triggered within a game, or a promotional award of spins at a fixed stake, usually subject to wagering requirements.
FTD also: first time depositor: A customer who has made a first deposit. The standard unit of acquisition reporting and the usual trigger for an affiliate fee.

G

Gambling monopoly: An arrangement reserving gambling, or part of it, to a state or state-controlled operator. Still in place for lotteries in most of Europe and for all products in Norway.
Game studio also: content provider: The company that designs and builds games, paid as a share of the revenue its titles generate rather than by licence fee.
Game weighting also: contribution rate: The proportion of a stake on a given game that counts towards a wagering requirement. Slots usually count fully, low-edge table games little or not at all.
GAMSTOP: The British national self-exclusion register, covering every licensed online operator at once.
Geolocation: Verification that a customer is physically inside a jurisdiction when a bet is placed, to a specified confidence, and re-checked during a session. Fundamental to American state-level licensing.
GGR also: gross gaming revenue, gross win: Stakes minus winnings paid: what the operator retains from play before costs. The most common base for gambling tax. See how gambling is taxed.
Good causes funding: The defined share of lottery proceeds allocated to public purposes, and the strongest political argument available to any gambling product.
Grey market: A market where no local licence is available for the product but supply is not clearly prohibited or is not enforced against. See the distinction explained.

H

Handle also: turnover, amount staked: The total amount wagered, before any winnings are paid. American reporting usually leads with handle; European reporting usually leads with revenue.
Hit frequency: The proportion of spins that return anything at all, including returns smaller than the stake. A high figure does not mean a profitable game.
Hold also: win percentage: The share of the amount staked that the operator retains, after winnings. The realised equivalent of theoretical margin.
House edge: The share of stakes a game retains over its full cycle: the complement of return to player. A 96 per cent game has a 4 per cent house edge.
Hybrid deal: An affiliate arrangement combining a reduced fee per acquisition with a reduced revenue share, splitting risk between the parties.

I

iGaming also: online gambling: The online gambling industry as a whole, covering casino, betting, poker, bingo and lottery products delivered over the internet.
In-play betting also: live betting, betting in running: Betting while an event is under way, on markets repriced continuously. Now the majority of football betting turnover. See what it changed.
Inducement: A bonus, free bet or similar offer. Several markets permit gambling advertising while prohibiting the public advertising of inducements.
Instant win also: e-instants: Lottery-licensed games with an immediate result, structurally close to slots and the fastest-growing part of the lottery sector.
Integrity monitoring: Surveillance of betting patterns for signs of manipulation, reported to sports bodies and law enforcement. Usually carried out by the same companies that supply odds data.

J

Jackpot network also: pooled jackpot: A prize pool funded by contributions from players across many operators and markets, run by the game supplier. See how jackpots are funded.

K

Key function holder: An individual approved by the Malta Gaming Authority to hold a defined role such as compliance, anti-money-laundering or player protection.
KYC also: know your customer: Verification of a customer's identity, age and location before, or shortly after, they are allowed to play.

L

Latency: The delay between an event occurring and it reaching a system or a viewer. The gap between data feed and broadcast stream is the central integrity problem in in-play betting.
LCCP also: licence conditions and codes of practice: The operative rulebook attached to a British gambling licence, amended far more often than the legislation itself.
Liability: In betting, the amount a book would owe if a particular outcome occurred. Managing liability, rather than eliminating it, is what a trading team actually does.
Lifetime value also: LTV: The total net revenue a customer is expected to generate over the life of the relationship. The figure against which acquisition cost is judged.
Liquidity: The number of players available in a shared pool. Decisive for poker, which is why states pool players across borders through shared agreements.
Live casino also: live dealer: Casino games hosted by a real dealer in a studio and streamed to players in real time. See how the studios work.
Lottery courier: A service that buys a genuine lottery ticket on a customer's behalf, as distinct from selling a bet on the draw outcome.
LUGAS: The German central system that enforces a single monthly deposit limit and prohibits parallel play across all licensed operators at once.

M

Machine category: The classification of gaming machines by permitted stake and prize, tied to the type of venue and its entry controls.
Margin also: overround, vigorish, vig: The amount by which a bookmaker's implied probabilities exceed 100 per cent across a market. See how odds are made.
Market suspension: Automatic freezing of betting markets when a material event occurs, so bets cannot be placed on information the book has not yet processed.
Maximum win also: max win cap: The largest payout a game can produce, expressed as a multiple of the stake. A ceiling reached very rarely, not a target.
Megaways: A slot mechanic in which the number of symbols per reel varies each spin, producing a changing number of ways to win. Created by Big Time Gaming and licensed widely to other studios.
Merchant category code also: MCC: The code identifying a merchant's business type to the card networks. Gambling has its own, which is why banks can block gambling transactions specifically.
Minimum spin duration: A required minimum time per slot round, inherited from gaming machine regulation and applied to German online slots.
Mobile money: Payment through a telecom-operated wallet rather than a bank account. The dominant deposit method in several African markets and a prerequisite for entering them.
Multiplier: A factor applied to a win. In high-volatility design, accumulating multipliers in a feature round is where most of the return is concentrated.
Must-drop jackpot also: daily drop: A jackpot guaranteed to be awarded before a deadline, implemented by selecting a target value within a range in advance.

N

Negative carryover: An affiliate term under which a month in which referred players won carries a negative balance into the following month. The most contested clause in affiliate agreements.

O

OASIS: The German exclusion register, covering online and land-based gambling together.
Odds also: price: The return offered on a bet, expressed as decimal, fractional or American odds. Each format encodes an implied probability plus the operator's margin.
Official data rights: Exclusive rights to collect and distribute a competition's in-play data for betting purposes, now a distinct rights market alongside broadcasting.
Omnichannel: Operating retail and online as one business, with a shared account and wallet. Harder than it sounds because the two are often licensed and taxed separately.
Ongoing monitoring also: periodic review: The continuing obligation to keep customer information current and to watch for patterns inconsistent with what is known about them.
Open banking also: account to account: Payment directly between bank accounts using bank authentication, without a card in the middle. Cheaper, faster to pay out and identity-verified by construction.
Operator: The licensed company that holds the customer relationship, takes stakes and pays winnings. See the full supply chain.

P

PAM also: player account management, platform: The system holding accounts, wallets, bonuses, limits and regulatory reporting. See what a platform does.
Parallel play: Playing more than one game at once. Prohibited in Germany through a central system, because a physical machine never permitted it.
Pari-mutuel also: tote, pool betting: A system in which all stakes are pooled, a commission is deducted, and the remainder is divided among winning bets. The operator takes no position on the result.
Payment blocking: A requirement that banks and processors refuse transactions to identified unlicensed operators. More disruptive than site blocking and harder to avoid.
Paytable also: rules screen: The in-game information screen stating symbol values, feature rules, maximum win and the return setting actually in use. The only authoritative description of the game in front of the player.
Personal management licence also: PML: A licence held by a named individual with senior responsibility, allowing a regulator to sanction a person as well as a company. Used in Great Britain.
Point of consumption also: POC: The principle that an operator needs a licence in the jurisdiction where the customer is, regardless of where the company is based. The norm in regulated markets since the mid-2010s.
Point of consumption tax: Gambling tax levied by the jurisdiction where the customer is, rather than where the operator is established. Applied by each Australian state and territory separately.
Politically exposed person also: PEP: A person holding a prominent public function, or close to someone who does, subject to enhanced due diligence.
Prepaid voucher: A cash-purchased code used to fund an account. Provides a hard spending ceiling but complicates source-of-funds checks, and is restricted in several markets.
Progressive jackpot: A prize that grows from a fraction of every stake until it is won, then resets to a seeded value.
PSP also: payment service provider: The company that connects an operator to payment methods, acquiring and payouts. See how money moves.

R

Rake: The commission a poker room takes from each pot or tournament entry. The operator's revenue in a game where players compete against each other.
Reality check: A periodic on-screen reminder of elapsed time and, in some markets, net position during a session.
Regulatory settlement: An agreed resolution of an enforcement case, usually involving a payment and remedial undertakings. The published settlements are the best available record of how compliance actually fails.
Retail betting also: land-based betting: Betting through physical shops. Still commercially significant in markets with advertising restrictions, where a shop network is one of the few permanent forms of visibility.
Retention: Marketing directed at existing customers rather than new ones. Heavily restricted in markets such as Sweden, where only one bonus per customer is permitted.
Revenue share also: rev share: A commercial arrangement paying a percentage of the net revenue generated, used for affiliates, game suppliers and platform providers alike.
Reverse withdrawal also: withdrawal reversal: Cancelling a pending withdrawal to return the funds to the playable balance. Restricted or prohibited in several markets as a harm measure.
RNG also: random number generator: The component that produces the numbers deciding game outcomes. Tested for distribution, independence, unpredictability and correct scaling.
ROFUS: The Danish national self-exclusion register, checked by licensees before a stake is accepted.
RTP also: return to player: The proportion of stakes a game returns over its full cycle. A property of the game, not a forecast for a session. See RTP and volatility explained.

S

Scatter: A symbol that pays or triggers a feature regardless of position on the reels, usually the mechanism that starts a free spin round.
Segregated player funds: Customer money kept separate from operating money so that it remains available if the operator fails. Protection levels vary from balance-sheet separation to a protected trust.
Self-exclusion: A customer-initiated closure of access to gambling, at one operator or, through a national register, across all licensed operators at once.
Shared liquidity also: multi-state agreement: An arrangement allowing licensed poker rooms in different jurisdictions to combine player pools.
Site blocking also: DNS blocking: A requirement that internet providers block access to listed unlicensed gambling sites. Easy to circumvent individually, effective in aggregate.
Skin: In esports, a cosmetic in-game item with resale value, which was used as a stake in a large unregulated betting economy. In platform terminology, a branded front end on shared infrastructure.
Source of funds also: SOF: Evidence of where the money being gambled came from, as distinct from source of wealth, which concerns how the customer came to have money at all.
Spelpaus: The Swedish national self-exclusion register, which also blocks direct marketing to registered people.
Sportsbook: The betting product and the system behind it: market creation, pricing, bet acceptance, risk management and settlement.
Stake limit also: maximum stake: A cap on the amount that may be staked per spin or bet, applied to online slots in Britain and Germany among others.
Sticky bonus: A bonus whose principal can never be withdrawn, only the winnings generated from it. The alternative is a non-sticky bonus, which converts in full once conditions are met.
Suspicious activity report also: SAR: A report made to a national financial intelligence unit where activity cannot be satisfactorily explained. The customer generally must not be told it has been made.

T

Table game: Casino games such as blackjack, roulette and baccarat, whether software-based or live. Excluded from the German federal online licence.
Test house also: testing laboratory: An accredited laboratory that certifies games, generators and platforms against a jurisdiction's technical standard.
Totalisator also: tote: The system operating pari-mutuel pools, historically for horse racing and still central to the French and several Asian markets.
Tracking link also: tracker: The tagged link that attributes a registration to a particular affiliate or campaign, and the mechanism the whole acquisition economy depends on.
Trading also: odds compiling: The function that sets and adjusts prices and manages exposure. Increasingly outsourced to data suppliers as a managed service.
Tribal gaming: Gambling operated under the authority of a recognised tribe or First Nation, regulated through tribal bodies and compacts rather than ordinary state licensing.
Tumbling reels also: cascading, avalanche: A mechanic in which winning symbols are removed and replaced, allowing consecutive wins from one spin.
Turnkey solution: A packaged offering in which a supplier provides the platform, games, payments and often operational services, leaving the operator with brand and marketing.
Turnover tax also: stake tax: Gambling tax levied on the amount staked rather than on revenue. Far heavier on low-margin products than a revenue tax at a similar headline rate.
Type 1 to Type 4 (Malta): Malta's classification of gaming services: games of chance against the house, fixed-odds betting, commission-based games such as poker, and controlled skill games.

U

Ultimate beneficial owner also: UBO: The natural person who ultimately owns or controls a company. Identifying the chain to the UBO is a standard part of any licence application.

V

VIP scheme also: high roller programme: A programme of enhanced service and incentives for high-spending customers. Heavily restricted in several markets after cases in which the customers involved were plainly experiencing harm.
Virtual sports: Software-generated events priced from a random number generator, regulated as gaming rather than as betting despite resembling a sportsbook product.
Void also: malfunction voids all pays: Cancellation of a bet or game round, returning the stake. The standard remedy when equipment or software fails mid-round.
Volatility also: variance: How a game's return is distributed between frequent small wins and rare large ones. Two games with the same RTP can feel completely different.

W

Wagering requirement also: playthrough, rollover: How much must be staked before bonus funds or their winnings can be withdrawn, usually expressed as a multiple of the bonus. See how a bonus is costed.
Watershed: A time before which gambling advertising may not be broadcast, used to limit exposure of children.
White label: An arrangement in which a brand operates under another company's licence and platform. The licence holder carries the regulatory responsibility for what the brand does.
Wild: A symbol that substitutes for others to complete a winning combination, often with multipliers or expansion attached.