GGR stands for Gross Gaming Revenue. It is what a casino earns from gaming before any of its own bills: total amount wagered minus the amount paid back to players in winnings. If players wager $1,000,000 across a casino and it pays out $900,000 in winnings, GGR is $100,000. That is what the casino generated from gaming activity, and it is not profit yet.
What does GGR mean?
GGR equals total amount wagered minus amount paid back to players. Picture every dollar players hand over to play as turnover, and every dollar the casino hands back as winnings. GGR is simply the gap between those two numbers, the share the casino kept rather than paid out. It is calculated per period, monthly is typical, and it is the standard measure regulators and operators use to describe how much gaming activity is generating.
What is the difference between turnover and GGR?
Turnover, also called handle, is everything wagered, win or lose, with no adjustment for the fact that the same money often gets wagered many times over. A player who deposits $100 and plays it through ten times before losing it generates $1,000 of turnover from one $100 deposit, because each bet counts again even though it is the same money cycling through. GGR strips that repetition out. It only counts what the casino kept after paying out winnings, which is why GGR is always far smaller than turnover and is the number that describes the size of the business.
Is GGR the same as profit?
No, and this is where the confusion usually starts. GGR is only what is left after paying out player winnings, it says nothing about the casino's own costs. Taxes, staff, rent, marketing, platform and payment fees, and every other operating expense still have to come out of GGR before anything counts as real profit. A casino with strong GGR and bloated costs can still lose money. GGR tells you what the gaming side of the business generated, not what the business kept.
What is NGR, and how is it different from GGR?
NGR stands for Net Gaming Revenue, and it sits between GGR and profit. NGR is GGR minus bonuses, promotional costs, and typically gaming taxes and payment processing fees, the direct costs of running the gaming side of the business, before you even get to staff, rent or marketing. It matters beyond terminology: most revenue-share and affiliate deals in the industry are calculated on NGR, not GGR and not turnover, so the definition in a contract changes what gets paid.
Where does GGR fit between turnover and profit?
Four numbers, each one a filter on the one before it:
- Turnover (handle): every dollar wagered, the biggest and least meaningful number.
- GGR: turnover minus payouts to players, what the casino earned from gaming.
- NGR: GGR minus bonuses, promotional costs, and typically taxes and payment fees.
- Profit: NGR minus staff, rent, marketing and every other operating expense, what is left over.
Each step removes a real cost. None of them is optional, and skipping straight from turnover to profit is how casino numbers get misread in the first place.
Why look at GGR instead of turnover?
Because turnover is designed to look big. It counts the same money multiple times as it gets won and rewagered, so a casino can post an enormous turnover figure while doing a modest amount of real business. GGR and NGR strip that repetition out and show what the casino generated and kept. If someone is judging how well a casino is really doing, GGR and NGR are the numbers that answer that, turnover alone answers a different, much less useful question.
See the drop from turnover to NGR
Set a monthly turnover, a payout rate, and how much of GGR goes to bonuses and direct gaming costs. Watch how far the number falls before it is even close to profit.
Turnover
$1,000,000
GGR
$100,000
NGR
$80,000
NGR is 8% of turnover here, and staff, rent and marketing still have not been paid.
The cost share is illustrative and will vary by operator and market. This is a planning illustration, not a forecast of real results, and not financial advice.
Turnover, GGR, NGR or profit, do you know which is which?
Answer 5 questions to see how solid your grasp of these four numbers really is. Nothing is sent anywhere, this runs in your browser.
The bottom line
Turnover is a huge, flashy number that mostly measures how much money got recycled through bets, not how the business is doing. GGR is what a casino generates from gaming before its own bills. NGR strips out bonuses and direct gaming costs on top of that, and it is the number most revenue-share deals run on. Profit is whatever survives after everything else. Always look at GGR and NGR, not turnover alone, if you want to know how a casino is really doing, whether that is a game's own math or the wider business built around it, including what running one day to day involves.
Key takeaways
- Turnover, also called handle, is everything wagered, win or lose. It is a huge number and it does not tell you how the business is doing.
- GGR (Gross Gaming Revenue) equals total amount wagered minus amount paid back to players. It is what a casino earns from gaming before any operating costs.
- GGR is not profit. Taxes, staff, rent, marketing and other operating expenses still come out of it before anything is left over.
- NGR (Net Gaming Revenue) is GGR minus bonuses, promotional costs, and typically gaming taxes and payment processing fees. It sits between GGR and profit.
- Most revenue-share deals, including affiliate commissions, are calculated on NGR, not GGR and not turnover, so the definition you are working from changes what you get paid.
- Judge a casino's real performance on GGR and NGR, not turnover. A casino can post a huge turnover number while barely running a real business underneath it.
