Six beliefs, each checked against the arithmetic

These are the claims that circulate about what casinos keep and what they earn. Each one is stated as it is usually made, then tested against the same sample figures used across this desk.

Open the partner account Start with the hold

Figure stub

Sheet: HD-58-13
Subject: Six claims tested
Sample used: the same as the desk
Verdicts: false / partly / true

gross winWhat was kept: everything staked minus everything returned to players

the holdThe gross win divided by turnover, measured over a period and a whole book of play

net revenueWhat survives the bonus line, and the definition a reader should check first

Direct answerSix claims are tested here: that a hold is a game's edge, that a casino keeps everything staked, that deposits are revenue, that a bonus costs what it advertises, that a rising revenue means more lost per head, and that a hold of 4% is a margin of 4%. Four are false as usually stated and two are partly right.

Six claimsFour false, two partlySame sample throughoutArithmetic shown

The six claims

False

A casino's hold is the game's house edge

A hold is a period's realised retention across a whole book; an edge is a property of one game. They converge over long samples and diverge over short ones - a single day can show a hold of anything from nothing to several times the edge. The two are related and they are different quantities, as the edge page shows.

False

A casino keeps everything that is lost

It keeps the gross win, then pays bonus cost, marketing, duties and running costs out of it. In the sample, £4.00 of every £100.00 staked is kept and £0.60 of the £100.00 reaches operating profit, so 15% of what is kept survives to the bottom line and 85% of it is spent again.

False

Deposits are the operator's revenue

A deposit is the player's own money, held as a balance and withdrawable subject to the operator's conditions. It becomes turnover only if it is staked, and it never becomes revenue on its own. The same deposit can generate several times its value in turnover, which is why turnover figures look large beside deposit figures, as the two-numbers page works out.

False

A bonus costs the operator what it advertises

A bonus is granted as credit and costs the part that is wagered through and withdrawn, plus the expected payout of any free spins. In the sample, £720,000.00 of credit was granted and £252,000.00 of it was realised, with 65% forfeited, so the cost is a fraction of the advertised ceiling, as the bonus page sets out.

Partly

Rising revenue means each player is losing more

Gross win can rise because more customers played, because the same customers staked more, or because a mix moved towards a higher-holding product. Only one of those is a statement about what an individual lost, and the customer count is in the denominator for exactly that reason - see the customer page and the mix page.

Partly

A 4% hold is a 4% profit margin

The first half is right and the second does not follow. A hold of 4.0% is a real figure on the sample's turnover; the margin on the same turnover is 0.6%, because four lines of cost sit between them. The two percentages are related by the arithmetic on the pound-of-stakes page and by nothing else.

Why these six. Each one is a claim a reader is likely to meet, and each one is checkable with the arithmetic already on this site. Two of them are partly right, which is recorded rather than forced into a verdict, because a desk that finds everything false is not measuring anything. No claim here is about a named operator and no figure here is anyone's real published number.

The hold is not the edge

The first claim, worked through in full.

A pound of stakes

The second and sixth claims, line by line.

The bonus line

The fourth claim, with the arithmetic of breakage.

Read the figures

How to check the next claim you meet.