iGaming Starter Pack: Full Guide

iGaming · Full starter pack

Most people only see the lobby. Behind it sit providers, aggregators, wallets, promotions, a daily report that decides what the team believes, and a whole B2B market selling to the operator. This is the starter pack, written from the operator’s desk.

01 · Starter pack

Four things to know before any report makes sense: who sits at the table, what is on the floor, the words everyone uses, and where the money goes.

Operator: The brand players see. Owns the player account, the deposits and withdrawals, the promotions, and the customer service.

Game provider: The studio that builds the games and runs the RNG and the maths. Usually paid a share of the GGR its games produce.

Aggregator: One integration that plugs an operator into many providers through a single wallet API, and takes its own cut.

Platform / back office: Player accounts, wallet, bonus engine, and the exports the daily report is built from.

Payments: Deposit and withdrawal channels. Speed of withdrawal is one of the strongest trust signals a brand has.

Affiliates and agents: Bring players in and are paid per first depositor or as a revenue share. They show up in reports as referrers and channels.

Slots: Most of the catalogue and most of the turnover. Maths set by the provider.

Live casino: Real dealers on stream: baccarat, roulette, blackjack, sic bo, game shows.

RNG table games: The same table games, dealt by a random number generator instead of a person.

Sportsbook: Pre-match and in-play betting. The margin is built into the odds, not into a machine.

Fishing and arcade: Shooting-style games popular across Asia; they feel like skill, the maths is still set by the provider.

Lottery and fast games: 4D and number draws, plus crash and instant games with rounds that last seconds.

Traffic → Register → First deposit → Play → Withdraw → Return or churn

Registrations up, FTD flat: Before blaming acquisition, check traffic quality, verification friction, payment success, onboarding, and whether the offer is clear.

RTP: Return to player: the share of all bets a game pays back over the long run. 96% RTP means 4% stays with the house.

House edge: The other side of RTP. Small per bet, certain over volume.

Volatility: How the RTP arrives: many small wins, or long dry spells and rare big hits.

Turnover: Total amount bet. Also called handle. The same money can be bet many times.

GGR: Gross gaming revenue: bets minus wins. The game view of “how much we won”.

NGR: Net gaming revenue: GGR minus bonus cost and, depending on the contract, other deductions.

Net deposit: Deposits minus withdrawals. The cash view of “how much we won”.

FTD: First-time depositor. The moment a registration becomes a player.

Rollover: Wagering requirement: how many times a bonus must be bet before it can be withdrawn.

Rebate: A percentage of turnover (or of losses) paid back to the player, usually daily or weekly.

Bonus ratio: Bonus given out compared with deposits. The quickest way to see if promotions are buying growth or burning margin.

LTV: Lifetime value: what a player has deposited, withdrawn, and cost in bonus over their whole history.

ARPU / ARPPU: Average revenue per user, and per paying user. Check which revenue and which users the company means.

Active player: A player who meets the company’s own activity rule. The rule differs everywhere, so ask.

Retention: Players who come back or stay active across a defined window.

CPA: Cost per acquisition: a fixed payment to an affiliate for each qualifying depositor.

Revenue share: Commission as an agreed share of a defined revenue. Hybrid deals mix it with CPA.

Negative carryover: Whether an affiliate’s negative month is carried into the next. It depends on the contract.

KYC: Know your customer: identity and eligibility checks.

PSP: Payment service provider: the rails deposits and withdrawals run on.

Deposit: Player pays in through a payment channel.

Wallet: Balance sits in the operator wallet, plus any bonus.

Bets and wins: Each spin or hand moves money to the provider and back.

GGR: Bets minus wins, per provider and per game.

Deductions: Bonus cost, provider share, payment fees, affiliate commission.

Margin: What is left. Everything above is what the daily report watches.

Deposit ≠ Turnover ≠ GGR: A player can deposit 100 and bet the same balance over and over until turnover reaches 500. Each number answers a different question.

Growth needs controls. What is required depends on the jurisdiction and the licence.

KYC and age checks: Confirm who the player is and that they are allowed to play.

AML and source of funds: Anti-money-laundering controls, plus a closer look at where money comes from when required.

Responsible gambling: Deposit limits, time-outs, self-exclusion, and the rules that trigger them.

Multi-accounting and bonus abuse: One person, many accounts, farming the same welcome offer.

Payment fraud and chargebacks: Stolen cards, disputed deposits, and deposits reversed after play.

Collusion and false positives: Players working together at a table, and the honest players a strict rule catches by mistake.

Week 1 — Industry, products, player journey — Explain who does what and trace one player end to end.

Week 2 — Money, metrics, promotions — Read a basic report without mixing up deposit, turnover, and GGR.

Week 3 — Marketing, CRM, affiliates, payments — Trace the acquisition and retention funnels.

Week 4 — Risk, compliance, reporting, operations, B2B — Investigate a simple anomaly and know who owns the next action.

The newcomer rule: When you see a metric, ask: what does it measure, how is it calculated, what period does it cover, and what decision is it supposed to support?

02 · Promotions

Two budgets fund promotions. Providers pay to get their games played; operators pay to get players to deposit and stay. Knowing whose money it is tells you how to read the result.

Tournaments: A leaderboard over a set period on the provider’s games, ranked by win multiplier, total win, or turnover. Often network-wide across many operators.

Cash drops: Random cash prizes that land on qualifying bets during the campaign window.

Free spins / free rounds: Rounds credited on a specific game, funded by the provider for a launch or used by the operator as a bonus. Winnings usually carry a rollover.

Network jackpots: A progressive pool shared by many operators. “Must-drop” versions guarantee a win before a set time or amount.

New game launches: A package around a release: free rounds, a lobby banner, sometimes a mini tournament.

Red packets and festive drops: Angpao-style random rewards around Chinese New Year, Raya, and other festivals, common across Southeast Asia.

Missions: Complete tasks on named games, such as a number of spins or a win multiplier, to unlock a reward.

Placement deals and 1+1 combos: Providers fund a bonus in exchange for visibility: a top slot in the lobby, a banner, set campaign text. In a 1+1 combo the player picks a pair of providers, and every provider’s terms have to fit together.

Welcome bonus: A match on the first deposit, with a rollover.

Reload: Smaller matches on later deposits to pull players back.

Rebate / cashback: A slice of turnover or losses paid back daily or weekly.

Referral: A reward when an invited friend makes a first deposit.

VIP tiers: Better rebates, faster withdrawals, and a personal host as players climb.

Check-ins and birthdays: Small, regular reasons to log in.

03 · My workflow

This is the loop I ran on the operator side. Three flows, one rule: every decision should trace back to a number someone can check.

Daily report (Every morning): Export → Normalize → Performance → Members → Channels and brands → Decide.

Campaign launch (Every new promotion): Read the deal → Build the combo → Write the terms → Publish → Track → Review.

CRM loop (Every week): Segment → Export the list → Act → Measure.

04 · Reporting

The daily report is the operation’s memory. These are the numbers it carried, and what each one is for.

Deposit / Withdrawal: Money in and money out, per day and per member.

Net deposit: Deposit total plus withdrawal total, with withdrawals stored as negatives.

Transaction count: Number of deposits and withdrawals.

Active members: Members with transactions in the period, resolved across duplicate IDs.

No conversion: Registered members with no deposit date yet.

Recency buckets: Members grouped by days since last login and last deposit.

Bonus total / ratio: Bonus given out, and bonus compared with deposits.

Channel ROI: Deposits, withdrawals, bonus, and net result per referrer or channel.

Brand comparison: The same metrics side by side for every brand.

GGR dropped. Now what?: Check turnover, actives, deposits, FTD, channel mix, provider and game movement, bonus cost, and unusual player results. The number starts the investigation; it does not end it.

Withdrawals are negative: So net deposit is deposit plus withdrawal. When it matches company win/loss, that is not a bug.

One person, many IDs: Count active members after resolving by user ID, then phone and name, or growth is inflated.

Brands must stay separate: Every join and export stays scoped to one brand, or members get counted twice.

Cohorts are not transactions: A recency bucket counts members, not rows. The two tables will not match, and should not.

Good deposits can hide bonus: Always read deposit next to bonus ratio before calling a week good.

05 · The B2B side

Everything above is the operator’s view. Behind it is a second market: companies selling content, platforms, payments, and tools to operators. Here the signed deal is only the start; integration, promotions, and account growth decide whether it becomes a live business.

Operator, the buyer: Buys technology, content, payments, and services to run a player-facing brand.

Game provider: Supplies games and the promotional mechanics that come with them.

Aggregator: Distributes many providers through one integration layer.

Platform / PAM: Supplies the core: player accounts, wallet, bonus engine, and back office.

PSP / payments: Supplies transaction rails and local payment coverage.

CRM, data, and SaaS: Supplies engagement, analytics, automation, fraud, and operations tooling.

How a deal starts (Problem first, demo later): Market need → Discovery → Fit → Demo → Proposal → Decision.

Not “Want a demo?”: Ask first: which markets do you operate in, what are you trying to improve, what stack do you run, and what is missing today? Then decide whether a demo is useful.

Owner / C-level — Commercial impact, speed, risk, strategic fit — Outcome, differentiation, economics, implementation risk

Product — Content quality, roadmap, player experience — Catalogue, UX, configuration, roadmap

Marketing — Campaigns, visibility, assets, promo mechanics — Campaign tools, assets, promotion workflow

Operations — Configuration, reporting, support, daily workflow — Back office, reports, controls, support flow

Tech — API, integration, environments, reliability — Architecture, API, error handling, environments, monitoring

Finance / legal / compliance — Pricing, settlement, contract, regulatory fit — Commercial logic, reconciliation, settlement visibility

Market: Where does the operator actually operate?

Licence: Can the product legally be supplied there?

Product fit: Do they need what you sell?

Technical fit: Can both stacks integrate?

Commercial fit: Is there realistic volume or value?

Timing: An active project, or only information gathering?

Know what creates revenue and what creates cost. The sales deck gets attention; the contract defines reality.

Revenue share: An agreed percentage of a defined revenue base.

Fixed fee: Recurring or one-off, independent of gaming results.

Setup / integration fee: Charged for onboarding or technical work.

Minimum guarantee: A minimum commercial commitment under agreed terms.

Tiered pricing: Economics change when volume crosses set bands.

Custom deal: Hybrids, bundles, and market-specific structures are common.

Commercial definition: Exactly which number the percentage or fee applies to.

Territory: Approved markets, brands, domains, or entities.

Term and renewal: How long it runs, how it renews, how it ends.

Payment terms: Invoice, currency, settlement, and due dates.

SLA: Service levels, and who supports what.

Liability and compliance: Responsibilities, restrictions, and required controls.

Integration lifecycle (Signed does not mean live): Kickoff → Documentation → Development → Testing / UAT → Certification → Production.

Game catalogue: Titles, IDs, categories, availability.

RTP and configuration: Approved configurations and the operator’s setup.

Currency: Supported currencies and denominations.

Launch calendar: New releases and the markets they reach.

Maintenance: Incidents, planned downtime, version changes.

Reporting: Turnover, GGR, players, games, and markets, per operator.

Provider onboarding: The aggregator connects and maintains each supplier.

Operator integration: The operator connects once to reach many suppliers.

Content mapping: Game IDs, categories, metadata, assets.

Commercial routing: The contract decides who bills whom.

Incident routing: Support may pass through the aggregator before it reaches the provider.

Market availability: Access still depends on supplier and jurisdiction rules.

Operator asks: “What can you sponsor?”: Before answering, define market, brand, dates, eligible games, mechanic, budget cap, who funds it, assets, reporting, and what success means. Otherwise a “free promotion” becomes an operations problem later.

Provider campaign (Vague ownership breaks good promotions): Objective → Eligibility → Funding → Assets → Tracking → Reconciliation.

A live client is the start of the account, not the end. Pipeline is a sequence of evidence, not optimistic labels, and B2B retention is operational, not only relational.

Lead → Qualified → Discovery / demo → Commercial → Contract / integration → Live / expansion

Regular check-in: Priorities, issues, and upcoming launches.

Performance review: Volume, growth, game mix, campaign results.

Escalation: Coordinate technical and operational incidents.

More content, brands, markets: Grow catalogue adoption, then sister brands and newly approved markets.

Better placement: Earn visibility with evidence, not by asking.

Cross-sell: Introduce other products only when there is fit.

Revenue: Supplier revenue under the agreed commercial model.

Turnover / GGR: The operator activity underneath, where relevant.

Active players: How many people the supplied content reaches and holds.

Game / product mix: Which products actually create volume.

Operator growth: Movement by brand, market, or account.

Campaign lift: Agreed campaign metrics against a meaningful baseline.

API: A structured way for systems to request and exchange data.

Webhook: An event one system sends to another when something happens. Also called a callback.

Credential: The secret key a system uses to prove who it is.

Sandbox: A non-production environment for testing. Also called staging.

Production: The live environment serving real players and transactions.

Seamless wallet: The operator keeps one balance; the provider debits and credits it bet by bet.

Transfer wallet: Money moves into a separate provider balance before play and back after.

Round / Txn ID: The IDs that let two teams find the same bet in two systems.

Settlement: When and how a bet’s result is finalised and paid.

Error codes: Logs and codes: the evidence for diagnosing an integration problem.

Incident (How you behave is part of the product): Confirm scope → Collect evidence → Set severity → Route to owner → Communicate → Postmortem.

Never guess during an incident: Separate confirmed facts, current impact, investigation status, and the next update. Fast communication helps; confident speculation does not.

Busy, but not useful: Pitching before discovery. Calling every logo a qualified lead. Promising technical capability before confirming it. Launching promotions without tracking or funding rules. Treating a signed contract as revenue already earned. Only contacting clients when you want something.

Days 1–30 — Product, ecosystem, commercial model, terminology — Explain your product, customer, integration, and revenue model without hiding behind jargon.

Days 31–60 — Discovery, demos, pipeline, integration, reporting — Run a useful discovery call, tailor a demo, and know where each account really sits.

Days 61–90 — Account growth, campaigns, incidents, expansion — Own follow-ups, coordinate internal teams, and turn live accounts into measurable activity.

The B2B rule: Your job is not to know every answer at once. It is to understand the question, know who owns the answer, verify it, say it clearly, and move the account forward without creating risk.

06 · When a number moves

Search by symptom, not by terminology. Each path is an order to check things in; each playbook is a checklist that turns knowledge into repeatable work.

Traffic → Registration → FTD → Deposit → Turnover → GGR → NGR

Affected by: KYC, payment success, onboarding.

Attributed to: Affiliate, paid media, SEO, agent.

Used in: CPA, conversion, acquisition reporting.

Do not confuse with: Registration, or a deposit attempt that failed.

FTD suddenly dropped: Traffic → Registration → KYC → Deposit attempts → Success rate → PSP status

GGR suddenly negative: Large winner → Product → Game → Provider → Turnover → Settlement

Game will not launch: Game ID → Currency → Market → Provider → Maintenance → Integration

Promotion not credited: Eligibility → Requirement → Game → Expiry → Bonus engine → Player

Deposit success dropped: Method → PSP → Bank response → Market → Routing → Incident

Withdrawal pending: KYC → Risk review → Approval → Method → Processor → Communication

Launch a provider promotion: Objective → Funding → Games → Market → Dates → T&C → Assets → Tracking → QA → Report → Reconcile

Launch a new provider: Commercial → Integration → Config → UAT → Metadata → Placement → Smoke test → Monitor

Handle an incident: Scope → Evidence → Severity → Owner → Communication → Resolution → Postmortem

Investigate a daily report: Compare → Segment → Anomaly → Validate → Driver → Action

CRM campaign QA: Audience → Exclusions → Offer → Channel → Links → Dates → Localisation → Tracking → Test

B2B discovery: Market → Licence → Stack → Problem → Fit → Commercials → Timing → Next step

Withdrawal pending — Payments / finance — Risk · KYC · support

Game launch error — Product / tech — Provider · aggregator · support

Bonus missing — CRM / operations — Platform · support

Provider campaign — Marketing / B2B — Product · CRM · provider

Wrong settlement — Product / operations — Provider · tech · support

Deposit failure — Payments — PSP · tech · support

The edge is maths, not luck.

Every game here has a house edge, so players as a group lose over time. That is exactly why the industry is worth understanding in the open. This page explains how the business runs, not how to win, and it is not an invitation to play. Gambling laws differ by country.