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iGaming P&L explained: from GGR to EBIT, line by line
Updated 3 Nov 2026 · IBO — iGaming Back Office
A monthly P&L for an online casino or sportsbook answers one question: of the money players lost to you, how much is left after everyone else is paid? It’s built as a ladder. Each step takes away one kind of cost, and each result says something different about the business.
Step 1: GGR
Gross gaming revenue is stakes minus winnings. It’s driven by turnover (how much players bet) and hold (how much of it the house keeps). Split it by product — casino, live casino, sportsbook, poker — because each has a different hold and a different cost structure.
Step 2: NGR
Subtract bonus cost and gaming tax. What remains is net gaming revenue: the revenue the business actually earned from play. Bonus cost belongs here, not in marketing, if your P&L is to compare months fairly — moving it changes NGR, and with it every revenue-share payment calculated on NGR.
Step 3: variable costs
Costs that grow with activity:
- Payment processing — fees on deposits and withdrawals, chargebacks.
- Game provider royalties — usually a share of the GGR made on each provider’s games.
- Platform fees — if your platform is paid on revenue.
- Affiliate revenue share — if you count it as a variable cost rather than marketing.
NGR minus variable costs is the first contribution margin (CM1 in many companies, and in IBO). It says whether the product earns money before you spend on growth.
Where royalties go is a choice. IBO’s operator template counts provider royalties above NGR, next to bonuses, because they’re charged on GGR; many companies put them in variable costs. Either works if every month does the same.
Step 4: marketing
Paid media, affiliate CPA, SEO, CRM tools, sponsorships. The result after marketing (CM2 in many companies) shows whether this month’s growth paid for itself. Read it next to FTDs and Cost per FTD: a falling margin with rising FTDs can be a good month.
Step 5: fixed costs and EBIT
Salaries, office, licences, legal, software subscriptions. What’s left is EBIT — operating profit before interest and tax. EBIT margin (EBIT ÷ NGR) is the number to compare across months and with other businesses.
A worked example
Example (invented figures), one month:
| Step | € |
|---|---|
| GGR | 795,000 |
| − Bonus cost | −119,250 |
| − Gaming tax | −95,400 |
| = NGR | 580,350 |
| − Payment processing | −38,200 |
| − Game provider royalties | −71,600 |
| = After variable costs | 470,550 |
| − Marketing | −186,000 |
| = After marketing | 284,550 |
| − Fixed costs | −190,000 |
| = EBIT | 94,550 |
EBIT margin = 94,550 ÷ 580,350 = 16.3%.
Three mistakes to avoid
- Mixing definitions. If one month counts bonuses in marketing and the next in NGR, the trend is fiction. Fix the definitions once.
- Reading EBIT alone. A good EBIT with collapsing FTDs is next quarter’s problem. Read the ladder top to bottom.
- No plan to compare with. A P&L tells you what happened; only a plan tells you whether it was good.
In IBO
Departments enter their lines; IBO builds this ladder every month — GGR, NGR, CM1, CM2, EBIT — shows the plan next to each step, and Explain in the AI assistant lists the lines behind each difference.