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TOP-5 factors affecting casino profitability
Introduction: profitability = sum of small coefficients
Casino profits are not one "secret," but a product of multipliers: payment conversion, margin after bonuses and royalties, traffic cost, compliance discipline and uptime. Below are the five factors that most often "make" (or "break") contribution and EBITDA.
1) Payment health: Approval/MDR/Cashout/Chargeback
Why it matters: every deposit refusal is a lost turnover, every + 10 bp MDR - minus to the margin, slow cashout - churn growth.
What to watch
Approval Rate (deposits/conclusions): target> 88-90% for GEO core.
Blended MDR (PSP/APM Commissions): Objective <2. 5% (fiat) or <1. 5% (stables/crypto where allowed).
Cashout T-time (median/P95): target <12-24 h; there should be no pending queues.
Chargeback Rate: Target <0. 6% TPV.
Effect formula (approximate)
ΔПрибыль ≈ (ΔApproval × NGR margin) − (ΔMDR × TPV) − ΔChargebackFee.
Fast moves
GEO PSP ≥2 and route ≥2 per APM; auto-routing by success and cost.
Tiered-KYC (low-risk fast stream) + explainable anti-fraud (do not stifle approve).
Butch payouts, SLA by cashout, public metric "median payout."
2) Bonus policy and promo incrementality
Why it matters: Bonuses speed up revenue but eat up NGR if issued "blindly."
What to watch
Bonus% to NGR (by cohort/channel): target ≤22 -28% in mass segment.
Incremental ROI promo (test vs control, geo-holdouts), not correlation.
ARPU/Retention before and after promo; breakage and fair value of freespins.
Toolbox
Uplift models and Next-Best-Offer with RG restrictions.
Transition from flat bonuses to missions/quests and seasonal programs.
Mistakes
Count "growth" by last-click; exclude deferred payments/taxes/fee.
Encourage deposit instead of play: LTV grows slower costs.
3) Content mix and provider royalties
Why it matters: What games and in what ratio the showcase shows are ARPU, frequency, RTP volatility and royalty size.
What to watch
Share live/RNG/sports; hit-rate top providers; portfolio volatility.
Royalty/NGR vertical: live is usually more expensive than RNG but holds sessions.
Session/duration/repetitions, conversion to rates after recommendations.
Toolbox
Recommendation systems (seq2seq/Transformer) with volatility and RG constraints.
Portfolio optimizer: traffic transfer to mid-volatility, renegotiate by royalty.
Purpose
+ 3-9% to ARPU at a − of 5-10% to royalties per NGR unit due to the correct portfolio.
4) Efficiency of attraction: LTV: CAC and Payback
Why it matters: growth "in minus" with a long payoff burns the cache.
What to watch
LTV_90/180/365 by enrollment cohort (Net Revenue, not deposits).
CAC (media + creative + trackers + welcome bonus), Payback (target ≤90 -120 days for mass channels).
Share of reactivations vs new (count separately).
Rules
LTV_180 / CAC ≥ 1. 6 × with risk and tax margin.
Believe not last-click, but incrementality (A/B, geo-holdouts, MMM).
Levers
Cut off channels with Payback> 150-180 days; increase the proportion of organics/referrals; accurate creative testing.
5) Compliance and operational discipline: RG/AML and SLA
Why it matters: Fines, off-boarding PSPs and downtime cut margins and boost WACC.
What to watch
RG/AML incidents, self-exclusion, SLA KYC/SoF.
Uptime/SLA content, PSP and key services; MTTR.
Complaints per 1k active, response time of the support (<15 minutes before the first response).
Levers
XAI detection of risky patterns (early limits/pauses), chain analytics (where there is crypto).
SRE practices, canary deposits, reserve providers/routes, post-mortems publicly (without PII).
Example of cumulative effect (6 months, simplified)
Base: NGR $60 million; bonus% 26%; approval 86%; MDR 2. 6%; D30 8%; ARPU_30 $42.
Actions:1. Payment routing: + 2. 2 pp approval, − 40 bp MDR.
2. Promotional accuracy: bonus% − 2 p.p. with neutral LTV.
3. Content Rebalance: + 4% ARPU.
4. Cut off channels with Payback> 180 days: CAC − 10%.
5. SLA/compliance: less downtime, complaints − 20%.
Result: contribution uplift $3. 1–4. 0 million, forecast profit + $2. 2–3. 0 million, Payback for performance accelerated by 20-35 days.
Benchmarks (quick checklist of goals)
Approval ≥ 88–90%, MDR ≤ 2. 5%, cashout median ≤ 12–24 ч, chargeback < 0. 6%.
Bonus% to NGR ≤ 22-28%, the promo has an incremental ROI.
ARPU + 3-9% due to content mix, royalties/NGR − 5-10%.
LTV_180/CAC ≥ 1. 6 ×, Payback ≤ 120 days.
SLA ≥ 99. 9%, MTTR <60 min, RG/AML incidents are uncommon with post-mortem.
Common mistakes
1. Consider deposits as income - LTV and ROI "fly away."
2. Chase ARPU growth by killing Retention - LTV drops.
3. "Distribute" bonuses without incrementality control.
4. Ignore taxes/levi/fee in NGR → false margin.
5. Single PSP/route - fragility to off-boarding.
6. Ignore RG/AML - raise the cost of capital and lose track.
90-day profitability improvement plan
Days 0-30 - base stabilization
Dashboards: Payments Health, LTV/CAC/Payback, Bonus ROI, Content Mix.
A second route per APM; SLA payouts with a public metric.
CAP on bonuses + mission pilot; pause for channels with Payback> 150-180 days.
Days 31-60 Fine Tuning
Auto-routing PSP by success/cost; MDR negotiations.
Uplift-NBO instead of flat bonuses; content recommendations (mid-volatility).
A/B и geo-holdouts; VIP scoring with RG limits.
Days 61-90 - Scale and Control
Hierarchical profit forecast (P10/P50/P90) reassembling ROI budgets.
Review of royalty/provider portfolio; SRE alerts and post-mortem rituals.
Monthly "Profit Drivers Report": where and how much money was given by payments/promo/content/marketing.
Casino profitability is based on five "pillars": payments, bonuses, content, attraction, compliance/operations. If each has metrics, experiments, and discipline, P&L becomes predictable: margins grow, caches accelerate, risks are controlled. Start with payments and bonuses, connect content mix and neat marketing, close compliance - and you will see the effect in the next quarter.