Glossary

Terms that do not mean what they are used to mean

Five terms in this category are repeated confidently and traceable to nobody. Each was checked against the document it is supposed to come from, and each of those checks is published in full on the page that owns the subject.

• Equal dignityQuoted as though it were the legal standard a free entry route has to meet — that the no-purchase route must be equal in dignity to the paid one.It appears in no US statute, no reported sweepstakes decision and no agency document. The phrase does exist in American law, as an agency doctrine about the form in which authority is granted, which is not this subject at all.What the free entry route actually has to do
• The sweepstakes MCCNamed as though the card schemes publish a merchant category code for this model, usually 7995.No card-scheme document we could read mentions sweepstakes, social casino or social gaming anywhere. The code exists and means something else; which code a business is assigned is an acquirer's judgement, not a lookup.What the scheme manuals actually say
• Turnkey and white labelUsed interchangeably, used in opposite senses by different suppliers, and sometimes used for an integration that delivers no front end at all.There is no standards body and no settled definition behind either word. A buyer collecting three quotes against these two terms is not comparing like with like, and cannot tell from the words alone.What the three models actually differ on
• Aggregate prize valueCited as the figure that triggers a state registration or bonding requirement.No state uses the phrase. All three registration statutes turn on the total announced value of the prizes offered, and none of them defines that term either.The three regimes, read against their statutes
• GeolocationSold as a single capability, when it covers two different purchases: working out where a player is, and applying rules to a location somebody else worked out.The two are separable and are separated here. Ask any supplier which of the two they are selling — the word alone will not tell you, and the answer changes what your platform has to do.Where the per-state rules are set and enforced

The model

The vocabulary of the promotion itself: what is being run, what a player gives, and what they can get back.

AMOE

Alternative method of entry: a way to obtain an entry without paying for it. It is the mechanism the whole structure rests on, and it has to be real rather than nominal.Free entry, in full

Chance

The element that decides who wins. Where the outcome is drawn rather than judged, the promotion is a sweepstakes rather than a contest of skill, and the two are treated differently.

Consideration

What a player gives up to take part. Cash is the obvious form; the reason a free entry route exists at all is to keep entry available without it.

Dual-currency model

Two balances in one account: one that is played for entertainment and one that can be redeemed. Keeping them apart is what the design is for.How the two balances are kept apart

Entry method

The route by which a player obtains an entry. A product of this kind has more than one, and the paid route may not be the only one on offer.

Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins

The two balances as most operators name them: the first bought and played, the second obtained free and redeemable. The names vary by brand; the structure underneath does not.What each balance is for

Official rules

The published terms of the promotion — who may enter, how, what is offered, and how a winner is determined. They are the document a regulator reads first.What official rules have to contain

Prize

What a player can win. In this model it reaches them through redemption rather than as a cheque in the post, which changes where the checks sit.

Prize pool

A promotions term for the total prizes on offer in a single promotion. It sits awkwardly on a product that runs continuously and awards on redemption rather than on a closing date, and operators are better served by talking about liability.

Social casino

A casino-style product with no redemption at all: coins are bought, played and never convert back. The difference from a sweepstakes product is redemption, and that difference carries the legal weight.

Sweepstakes promotion

A promotion offering prizes by chance where entry does not require payment. The word covers a supermarket draw and a dual-currency casino product equally, which is why it explains less than people expect.

Money

What comes in, what goes out, and the terms that appear in a supplier contract or an acquirer's file.

Chargeback

A cardholder's bank reversing a settled payment. It is not the same event as a decline and it does not have the same causes, which is why the two are worth separating before either is measured.Declines and chargebacks, separated

Coin package

A priced bundle of coins offered for sale. It is the transaction the player actually completes, and it behaves like a product purchase rather than like a stake.How packages are structured

Decline

A payment refused before it ever settles. Most declines are issued by the cardholder's own bank rather than by anything on the merchant's side.

GGR

NGR

Gross gaming revenue is what is wagered minus what is won. Net gaming revenue is that figure after deductions, and which deductions apply is a matter of contract rather than of definition.Why neither maps cleanly onto this model

Hold percentage

The share of what is wagered that the operator keeps over a period. It is an outcome that is measured after the fact, not a setting anybody chooses, and it drifts with what players actually play.

Redemption

The point at which a redeemable balance leaves the product and becomes something of value to the player. It is the moment the checks are built around.How redemption is gated

Rolling reserve

A share of settled takings an acquirer holds back for a period against future disputes. It is a cash-flow term rather than a fee, and it is negotiable in ways a rate card is not.

Threshold

A configured minimum that a balance must reach before it can be redeemed. It is a policy setting rather than a legal requirement, and where it is set is the operator's decision.

Content

The catalogue: who makes the games, who distributes them, and the measurements that describe how one behaves.

Aggregator

A distributor that carries many studios behind one integration. What it gives you is reach for one piece of work; what it costs you is a layer between you and the studio.What an aggregator is between you and

Catalogue

The set of titles available to a platform, as distinct from the lobby, which is the subset an operator chooses to show. Catalogue counts and lobby counts are different numbers and are quoted interchangeably.

Hit frequency

How often a title pays anything at all, regardless of size. Two titles with the same headline return can feel entirely different at this measure, which is what players notice first.

RGS

The remote game server: the system that runs a round and decides its outcome. Where it sits is a different boundary from where the wallet sits, and the two get sold as one word.The boundary an RGS actually names

RTP

Return to player: the share of wagers a title returns over its modelled lifetime. It is a property of the mathematics as certified, not a promise about any session.Why the same title can differ by market

Session RTP

What a single player actually got back over one sitting. It has no fixed relationship to the certified figure, and treating it as a fault report is a common support mistake.

Studio

The company that builds a title and holds the certificate for its mathematics. A supplier that cannot tell you who holds the certificate is reselling rather than supplying.The studio archetypes worth telling apart

Volatility

How unevenly a title distributes what it returns. High volatility means rarer, larger outcomes; the headline return figure can be identical either way.

Compliance

The terms that decide where you can trade, who you have to identify, and what a regulator can do about it.

AML

Anti-money-laundering: the obligations and controls around the movement of value out of a product. In this model the pressure sits at redemption, because that is where value leaves.

Bonding

A surety bond filed with a state alongside a registration, securing the prizes offered. It is a filing requirement rather than a licence, and it does not make a prohibited product permitted.

Cease-and-desist

A regulator's written instruction to stop. It requires no new law, arrives on the regulator's timetable rather than a legislative one, and is often the first notice an operator gets.

KYC

Know your customer: establishing that a person is who they say they are. Who performs it, and at which moment, is the part that varies between suppliers.Who verifies, and when

Licence

Permission from a gaming regulator to run gambling. The dual-currency model is built so that it is not the permission being relied on, and what is relied on instead is worth being able to state.What the model rests on instead

Multi-accounting

Bonus abuse

One player running several accounts, and players working an offer for more than it was meant to give. In a two-currency product they are closer to one problem than to two.Why they collapse into one problem here

Registration

Filing a promotion with a state before it runs. Three states require it for prize promotions above a stated value, and the regimes were written for promotions that end.

Responsible gaming

The tools and duties around a player's own limits — self-exclusion, deposit and session controls, and the routes to help. They apply to a free-to-play product as much as to a paid one.What the platform provides

State access control

Applying per-state rules to registration, play and redemption. It is a separate purchase from determining where a player is, and the two are routinely sold as one.

Statute versus enforcement

Two different ways a state closes: a legislature passing something that names the model, or a regulator acting under law that was already there. The second is faster and gives less warning.Which states did which

Integration

The words that appear in an integration call. The reference for all of these is the documentation; what follows is what each one means before you get there.

Callback

A request the platform makes to your endpoint during a round, rather than one you make to it. Getting the direction of travel right is most of understanding a wallet integration.

Idempotency

The property that repeating a request produces the result of doing it once. It is what makes a retry safe, and it is the thing most often missing from a first integration.The wallet API reference

PAM

Player account management: the back-office side of a platform. The category name promises far more than any two suppliers mean by it.What the term does and does not cover here

Rollback

Undoing a settled transaction after the fact, usually because a round could not complete. It is a distinct operation from a refund and needs its own handling.

Sandbox

A non-production environment for building against. What matters is how faithfully it reproduces the failures you will meet later, not that it exists.The sandbox

Seamless wallet

An integration where the balance stays in your system and the platform asks it to move on every round. The alternative is a transfer wallet, and the choice decides where the ledger lives.Seamless and transfer wallets compared

Transfer wallet

An integration where funds are moved into the platform before play and back out afterwards. It is simpler to build and worse at the edges, where a transfer can be in flight.

Wallet of record

Whichever system holds the balance that counts when two disagree. Every integration has exactly one, and knowing which it is settles most reconciliation arguments before they start.

How this glossary is written

Definitions here come from a primary source or from our own published method, and where a term has no settled definition this page says so rather than inventing one. Where a page on this site owns a term's subject, the entry defines the word and links to that page instead of restating its argument. The corrections at the top are the ones we have checked at source, and each links the page where the evidence is set out in full.