Revenue and metrics

LTV: a player's lifetime value

LTV (Lifetime Value) is the net revenue a player brings the casino over the whole relationship, actual or forecast. LTV caps how much you can pay to acquire a player and how much you can give back to them in bonuses.

Yevhen SychovOctober 2026

Formula and example

Cohort LTV = cohort NGR for the period / number of players with a first depositA cohort of 1,000 players generated €180,000 NGR over 12 months: LTV is €180 per player.

Calculate LTV on NGR, not on deposits or GGR. Bonuses and taxes take a noticeable part of revenue, and LTV on GGR promises more than you will actually earn.

Historical and predictive

Historical LTV is the fact for past months. It is accurate but arrives late: a cohort's first-year LTV is only visible a year later.

Predictive LTV estimates the future from the first weeks: deposit size and frequency, bet size, games. It is needed to make traffic and VIP decisions earlier. The forecast is checked against the actuals of every new cohort.

LTV and player cost

Compare LTV with the full acquisition cost: CPA or revenue share paid to the affiliate. Bonuses are already deducted in NGR, so do not deduct them a second time.

It helps to calculate in steps: a player's NGR after the 1st, 2nd and up to the 5th deposit against CPA and revenue share. This shows from which deposit a player starts to pay back and which traffic source is profitable.

Payback = player NGR by the Nth deposit minus CPA and revenue shareCPA €120. NGR after the first deposit €35, after the third €95, after the fifth €150: the player pays back on the fifth deposit.

Common mistakes

  • Looking only at the average. A few big players pull the average LTV up. Check the median and calculate by segment.
  • Using one LTV for all traffic. Sources bring players of different quality, and their LTV differs.
  • Not updating the forecast. A model trained on last year's cohorts goes wrong when the product or traffic changes.
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