The terms, defined plainly.

A player who has placed a real-money wager within a defined window, usually thirty days. Definitions differ between operators, which is why activity rates rarely compare cleanly across platforms.

A platform limiting or disabling an advertiser’s account. In regulated categories this often applies at account level rather than to a single ad, which is why campaign structure matters as much as creative.

A partner who promotes an operator in exchange for commission on the players they send, usually on revenue share, CPA, or a hybrid of both.

Asia Gaming Brief. Industry news outlet covering Asian gaming markets, and a common source for regulatory and commercial developments across the region.

Restricting access to gambling content by verified age. A licensing requirement and an advertising requirement, enforced differently by each platform.

An offline or semi-offline partner who recruits and services players through personal relationships rather than published content. A significant acquisition channel in the Philippines and largely invisible in digital reporting.

A supplier bundling games from multiple studios into one integration, so an operator connects once rather than separately to each provider.

A list of approved domains, placements, or partners a campaign is permitted to run on. The opposite of a blocklist, and the safer default in regulated categories.

Anti-money laundering. The controls an operator runs to detect and report suspicious financial activity.

Anti-Money Laundering Council. The Philippine agency overseeing anti-money laundering compliance, including for licensed gaming operators.

Average revenue per paying user. Counts only players who deposited, so it always exceeds ARPU. The two get confused often enough to distort comparisons.

Average revenue per user, including inactive ones.

An annual gaming industry conference held in Manila, focused on Southeast Asian markets.

Assigning credit for a conversion to the channels and partners that produced it. The method matters more than the number.

PAGCOR authorization for companies supplying licensed operators rather than serving players directly, including platform providers, game content suppliers, payment providers, and marketing firms.

A long-established gaming format in the Philippines, offered online and in venues. Electronic bingo is one of the larger licensed categories in the market.

Total acquisition spend divided by all new customers across every channel. Useful as a headline, misleading when channel costs differ sharply, which they usually do.

Extracting value from promotions without genuine play, through multiple accounts, coordinated groups, or exploiting terms. A cost that sits inside acquisition numbers and is often missed.

Non-human traffic generated by automated scripts. Inflates registrations and clicks, and is the most common cause of a channel that converts well and deposits badly.

Controlling the context an ad appears in. In gambling it also means keeping a licensed brand away from placements that would breach its licence conditions.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. The Philippine central bank, which regulates payment systems, e-money issuers, and virtual asset service providers.

Customer acquisition cost. What it costs to acquire one paying customer. See also cost per FTD.

Conversions API. A server-to-server connection sending conversion events directly to an ad platform rather than relying on a browser pixel. More resilient to tracking restrictions and increasingly the primary signal rather than a backup.

The rate at which players stop playing. Usually monthly, and the input most likely to be wrong in a lifetime value calculation.

Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center. The Philippine agency under the DICT responsible for cybercrime coordination, including action against illegal online gambling sites.

A creator who cuts and redistributes short-form content at volume rather than producing original material. Cheap reach that compounds, and a distinct channel from influencer marketing.

Showing ad reviewers different content from what real users see, so a non-compliant page passes review. Prohibited by every major ad platform and grounds for permanent account loss. We do not use it, and we will not work on campaigns that do.

A group of players sharing a starting point, usually the month they first deposited. Cohort analysis is the only honest way to read retention, because it follows the same people over time.

A dice and colour betting game long played at Philippine fiestas, now offered in licensed digital form.

A segment deliberately excluded from a campaign so its effect can be measured. Also called a holdout.

What it costs to acquire one first-time depositor. The standard acquisition metric in iGaming, and the one most likely to reward volume over quality. See our benchmark.

Cost per acquisition. As an affiliate deal, a fixed fee per qualifying player rather than a share of revenue.

Cost per click.

Cost per mille, the cost of one thousand impressions.

A fast-round game where a multiplier rises until it stops at random, and players cash out before it does. Popular with younger players and heavily represented in creator content.

The decline in performance as an audience sees the same asset repeatedly. One of the two most common causes of rising acquisition cost, alongside placement mix.

Someone producing original content with an audience of their own. Distinct from an influencer in emphasis rather than kind, and distinct from a clipper, who redistributes rather than originates.

Click-through rate. A creative diagnostic, not a performance metric.

An ad that runs without appearing on the advertiser’s own profile feed. Standard practice for testing many variants without flooding followers.

A tracking link sending a user to a specific page or game rather than the homepage, preserving attribution along the way.

Department of Information and Communications Technology. The Philippine government department overseeing ICT policy, and the parent body of the CICC.

Gradually building sending or traffic history on a new domain so platforms and inboxes treat it as established rather than suspicious.

Online cockfighting betting. Licensed in the Philippines for a period, then suspended in 2022. Referenced frequently in market discussion and no longer a live licensed category.

A digital payment account used instead of a card or bank transfer. E-wallets dominate consumer payments in the Philippines, and their policies on gambling merchants have changed more than once.

A player making their first real-money deposit. Commonly shortened to FTD, and the point at which most affiliate commissions trigger.

An arcade-style shooting game played for real money, common in Asian markets and usually grouped with slots in reporting.

The average number of times a person sees an ad in a period. Rising frequency with flat results is the clearest sign of creative fatigue.

The sequence from first exposure to deposit and beyond. Worth defining explicitly, because most disagreements about channel performance are really disagreements about where the funnel starts.

Global Gaming Expo Asia. A major gaming industry trade show serving the Asian market.

Preventing access from territories an operator is not licensed to serve. A licence condition rather than a marketing choice.

Gross gaming revenue. Total wagers minus winnings paid out, before bonuses, taxes, and costs.

The total amount wagered over a period, regardless of outcome. Also called turnover. Not revenue.

The share of handle an operator keeps after paying out wins.

A group deliberately excluded from a campaign so its incremental effect can be measured. The difference between treated and holdout is the only part of a result the program earned.

The theoretical margin built into a game, expressed as a percentage of each wager. The inverse of return to player.

An affiliate arrangement combining an upfront CPA with ongoing revenue share.

Inside Asian Gaming. Industry media outlet and conference organiser covering Asian gaming markets.

An operator serving a market without the licence that market requires. Often described as unregulated, though the more accurate description is unlicensed, since the regulation exists and is simply being ignored. See HelpGamblers.ph for licence verification.

Traffic driven by rewarding the user for the action itself. Registers well and deposits badly, and a frequent explanation for a channel that looks efficient on paper.

The portion of a result that would not have happened without the campaign. Measured against a control group, and usually lower than the reported number.

A creator whose audience trusts their recommendation enough to act on it. In regulated categories the working constraint is not reach but whether they can be briefed to stay compliant.

A lottery-style number draw game, offered online and in venues.

Key opinion leader. The term used across Asian markets for what Western markets call an influencer, usually implying more authority and a narrower audience.

Know your customer. Identity verification before a player can deposit or withdraw. A regulatory requirement and a real conversion step, since friction here shows up directly in deposit rates.

The page a user arrives on from an ad. In gambling it is reviewed by the platform in its own right, so a compliant ad can still be rejected for its destination.

Crediting a conversion entirely to the final touchpoint before it. The default in most ad platforms, and the reason search and retargeting look better than they are.

Table games streamed from a studio with human dealers, played in real time.

An audience built by an ad platform to resemble a source list. Quality depends entirely on the quality of the list fed in.

Lifetime value. Total revenue a player is expected to generate before churning. Sensitive to assumptions and worth treating as a range.

The ratio of lifetime value to acquisition cost. Widely used, widely misread. A ratio below 1 often reflects a blunt formula rather than an unprofitable business. See our benchmark.

The share of a cohort still active one month after acquisition. The earliest reliable signal of whether a channel is bringing players worth having.

A partner who recruits and manages sub-affiliates beneath them, earning a share of what their network produces.

A duplicate of a site on an alternative domain, used to maintain access when the primary domain is blocked. Common among unlicensed operators, and a reason licensed brands get caught in broad enforcement.

Mobile measurement partner. A third-party platform attributing app installs and in-app events to the campaigns that drove them.

The actual commercial destination in a traffic chain, as distinct from the pages leading to it. The term usually appears where the route to it is designed to obscure the destination.

National Database of Restricted Persons. The Philippine register of individuals barred from gambling, including self-excluded players and groups restricted by law.

An affiliate arrangement where a losing month for the operator carries forward and reduces future commission. A frequent point of dispute in revenue share deals.

Net gaming revenue. Gross gaming revenue minus bonuses, gaming taxes, payment fees, and in some definitions affiliate commissions. The base most revenue share deals pay against, which is why the definition belongs in the contract.

National Telecommunications Commission. The Philippine regulator for telecommunications, which carries out site blocking orders.

Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation. The state regulator for gaming in the Philippines, and also an operator in its own right.

How long it takes for a player to return what it cost to acquire them. Cost per FTD divided by monthly revenue per player. Unlike LTV:CAC it does not depend on a churn assumption, which is why we lead with it. Work it out with the investment calculator.

Tracking code on a website reporting visitor actions back to an ad platform. Increasingly supplemented by server-side tracking and CAPI.

Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator. A licence category permitting operators based in the Philippines to serve players abroad. The category was banned in 2024 and wound down.

A server-to-server notification that a conversion happened, sent from the operator to the tracking platform. More reliable than browser-based tracking.

A game where players stake on the outcome of a short future event, such as a price movement or a round result. A fast-growing product category and one where classification varies by regulator.

A market where positions are taken on real-world outcomes and prices reflect collective expectation. Treated as gambling in some jurisdictions and as a financial product in others, which is the whole regulatory question.

A page shown between the ad and the destination, usually to qualify or warm the visitor. Legitimate when it accurately represents what follows, and a cloaking mechanism when it does not.

Bringing a churned player back. A meaningful share of churned cohorts return in any given month, which the standard lifetime value model treats as impossible.

A market where gambling is lawful under a licensing regime, with defined conditions on operators, advertising, and player protection. The Philippines is a regulated market.

The controls and messaging intended to reduce gambling harm, including age verification, deposit limits, self-exclusion, and signposting to support. See our standards.

Advertising to people who have already engaged with a brand. Efficient on paper, and the channel most likely to take credit for conversions that would have happened anyway.

The share of players still active after a given period. Best read by cohort, and close to meaningless when blended across player tiers.

An affiliate deal paying a percentage of the revenue their players generate, usually net gaming revenue, for as long as those players remain active.

Random number generator. The certified software determining game outcomes.

Return on ad spend. Reads differently depending on whether the revenue figure is gross or net, so the definition matters more than the number.

Return to player. The theoretical percentage of wagers a game returns over time.

The compliant version of a page shown to reviewers while users are routed elsewhere. The mechanism behind cloaking, and prohibited on that basis.

Special Class Business Process Outsourcing. A Philippine licence category for companies providing support services to gaming operators licensed elsewhere. Distinct from POGO, and frequently confused with it.

Securities and Exchange Commission. The Philippine regulator for corporations and securities, including oversight of crypto-asset activity through its sandbox frameworks.

Placing content with creators before a campaign scales, to test what resonates before spend goes behind it.

A player-initiated bar on their own access to gambling, for a fixed period or indefinitely. In the Philippines exclusions are recorded nationally and enforced across regulated platforms.

Sending conversion data from your own server to ad platforms rather than from the user’s browser. More resilient to browser restrictions and ad blockers.

A gaming industry events and media group running conferences across several regions, including SiGMA Asia in Manila.

Reel-based games, the largest category by volume in most online casinos.

A paid placement that promotes an existing organic post, keeping the creator’s handle and engagement rather than reposting as a brand ad.

The sports betting part of a platform, as distinct from casino, live dealer, or slots.

A creator broadcasting live. In iGaming, session length and real-time reaction make the format unusually effective and unusually hard to keep compliant.

An affiliate recruited and managed by another affiliate rather than directly by the operator.

A Filipino card game, widely played socially and offered in licensed digital form.

A ready-made platform an operator launches on, including games, payments, and back office. Faster than building, with less control.

User-generated content. Creative made to look like organic content rather than advertising. Effective, and the format most likely to drift out of compliance without review.

A market with no licensing regime for gambling. Often used loosely to describe unlicensed activity inside a regulated market, which is a different thing and better described as illegal.

Tags appended to a URL so analytics can identify the campaign, source, and medium that produced a visit.

The highest-value segment of a player base. A small share of players producing a large share of revenue, usually managed by dedicated hosts. See our breakdown of player value tiers.

The amount a player must stake before bonus funds convert to withdrawable balance. The main lever determining what a promotion actually costs.

Operating under another company’s platform and licence with your own brand on the front. Fast to launch, limited in control and margin.

Our own affiliate and creator network and tracking platform, spanning affiliates, influencers, clippers, and agents across the Philippines and Southeast Asia. More on WOMO.