What Is GGR in Gambling? GGR vs NGR, Explained

GGR — Gross Gaming Revenue — is total player stakes minus total winnings paid out, before any costs. The definition is simple; the problem is that your tax authority, your regulator and your platform provider each apply a different version of it, and only one of those three is negotiable. Every operator learns the arithmetic in week one. The expensive lesson comes later, when the revenue share in a platform contract turns out to be calculated on a base nobody defined in writing.

What is GGR?

Gross Gaming Revenue is what the house keeps before it pays for anything. Take everything players staked over a period, subtract everything paid back out in winnings, and the difference is GGR.

Stake €1,000,000 across a month, return €950,000 in wins, and GGR is €50,000 — a 5% hold. That is the whole formula, and it applies equally to slots, tables, poker rake and a sportsbook’s settled margin.

You will meet the same number under other names. Regulators and tax legislation often say gross gaming yield or gross win; trading teams say win; almost every commercial contract says GGR. They mean stakes minus winnings.

Two things GGR is not:

• It is not turnover. Turnover, or handle, is the stakes figure alone. A casino can push €50m of handle through a month and hold €1.5m of it. Quoting handle as revenue is the oldest flattering metric in the industry.
• It is not profit. GGR sits at the top of the P&L. Platform fees, game content, payment costs, marketing, salaries, licence fees and gaming tax all come out of it.

GGR vs NGR — where the money actually moves

Net Gaming Revenue is GGR after deductions. That sounds like a definition. It is not, because there is no standard list of what gets deducted, and the list is what you are really negotiating when you agree a revenue share.

Deductions commonly taken before the split include:

• Bonus cost — free spins, matched deposits and cashback. On an aggressive acquisition month this alone can be 20–30% of GGR.
• Payment processing fees — real money at 3–6% per transaction in high-risk iGaming.
• Chargebacks and fraud losses.
• Gaming duty — where the regime charges one.
• Affiliate commission.
• Platform and content fees — sometimes deducted, sometimes charged on top, occasionally both.

Whether each of those comes off before or after the split decides your effective rate. A 15% share on a clean GGR base can be cheaper than a 12% share on an NGR base that deducts nothing you actually pay. When a provider offers to move you from GGR to NGR “to be fairer”, ask for the deduction list in writing before you say yes.

Who uses GGR, and for what

Tax authorities. Gaming taxes are usually charged on the gross figure rather than on profit. The UK levies Remote Gaming Duty on operators’ gaming profits, and the duty regime uses gross gaming yield as its base. Malta applies a compliance contribution against revenue plus a 5% gaming tax on revenue from Maltese players.

Regulators, for fees. Several regimes scale licence and compliance fees by revenue band, so your GGR determines what you pay for the privilege of earning it. Others take a flat annual fee and tax gaming revenue at 0% — which is the core of the offshore proposition.

Platform and content providers. Revenue share is the dominant commercial model across the industry. A white-label casino typically takes 10–25% of GGR; a turnkey deal usually sits under 5–10%; a games aggregator takes 12–20%, more often of NGR. Those percentages stack, and they stack on the same revenue.

Investors and buyers. GGR and the GGR-to-NGR conversion rate are the first two numbers in any diligence pack. A business with a clean, well-documented revenue definition is worth more than one whose contracts define it three different ways.

The tax question: 0% on gaming revenue, or a real rate

Licence regimes divide broadly into two families, and the split matters far more than the headline application fee.

Fixed fee, 0% on gaming revenue. The offshore model. Anjouan and Curaçao charge a substantial annual licence fee and do not tax gaming revenue itself. Your cost is fixed, so it falls as a percentage of revenue as you grow — which is why the model suits operators who expect scale.

Real rate on the gross figure. Onshore and tier-1 regimes. Malta charges a fixed annual licence fee plus a compliance contribution and a 5% tax on revenue from Maltese players; the UK charges Remote Gaming Duty on gaming profits. The cost scales with success, in exchange for market access and banking reception that offshore licences do not buy.

Model both against your own projections rather than the headline fee. A licence that looks €30,000 more expensive on paper can be the cheaper one at €2m of annual GGR, and the more expensive one at €200,000. Our Licence Fee Index compares the published schedules across 55 jurisdictions so you can run that comparison against real numbers.

Reading a GGR figure critically

Four questions that separate a real number from a pitch deck:

1. Gross of bonus, or net? “GGR” quoted after bonus cost is really NGR wearing a better name.
2. Before or after gaming duty? In a taxed regime the difference is the tax rate, in full.
3. Which currency, at which rate? Multi-currency books can flatter or flatten a month purely on FX.
4. Settled or open? A sportsbook’s GGR is not final until bets settle. Unsettled liability is not revenue.

The practical rule

GGR is a simple metric that is routinely used imprecisely, and the imprecision is almost never in your favour. Fix the definition in writing before you sign anything that pays out of it — the platform contract, the aggregator agreement, the affiliate deal — and model your tax base before you choose a licence, not after.

If you are picking between licence regimes and want the revenue-base comparison run against your own projections rather than a fee table, that is a scoping call, and it is free.

Iryna H.

Gaming Licensing · Vantegris

Part of the Vantegris desk that runs these licences end to end — writing from live applications across 40+ jurisdictions, not recycled marketing. Reviewed by Vladyslav S. (Compliance & Legal).

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This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional before acting.