Some newly launched platforms almost all have various exaggerated first-charge activities, such as "first charge 300%", "register to give $188", "recharge to give 100 free spins", etc. In contrast, some old-brand platforms that have been operating for many years are very restrained in their activities.
In most cases, the first charge reward is maintained at around 100% at most, and some are even just fixed amount rewards, and you can hardly see the publicity of multiple first charges.
We generally think that the old platforms already have a reputation and are reluctant and do not need to spend a lot of money to pull new ones.
🔴 But the biggest reason is these platforms have long discovered that high-amount activities may not bring high-value players, but may become a profit loophole.
For ordinary players, the first charge reward is equivalent to the platform giving money to players to bet, which is part of the marketing cost of the platform.
Generally mature gambling platforms will focus on three core indicators:
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
LTV (Player Lifetime Value)
ROI (Return on Marketing Investment)
For example, a sports platform invests a large advertising budget and eventually gets 1,000 registered users, of which 300 people complete the first recharge. If calculated, it costs $80 on average to obtain a first-charge player, then $80 is the customer acquisition cost of this player.
The next concern of the team is how much value this user can contribute in the future. If this player continues to recharge in the coming year and eventually brings $250 in net profit to the platform, then this marketing investment is successful.
But if the player just wants to receive the first charge reward, complete the minimum turnover and then withdraw and never go online again, then these $80 are completely wasted.
📲The real problem behind high first charges—Bonus Abuse
Almost all large operators are wary of the biggest problem with high first charges, which is Bonus Abuse. Bonus abuse generally means that someone registers multiple accounts to receive multiple rewards, but now bonus abuse has developed into a complete industry chain.
Take the simplest example, a platform launches an activity "first charge 100%, up to $100". An ordinary player recharges $100, then plays slot machines, baccarat according to their interests, continues to recharge if they lose, and continues to play if they win, which is what the platform wants to see in normal users.
And the arbitrage play of Bonus hunters, they will first recharge just enough to meet the activity threshold to ensure they can get the highest reward.
Then, they specifically choose the game with the highest RTP (Return to Player), and then the lowest volatility that is easiest to meet the turnover requirements to bet. Once the withdrawal conditions are reached, they will immediately apply for withdrawal.
For the platform, these users will not generate long-term value, while consuming a lot of marketing expenses.
Industry data prove that bonus abuse has become one of the biggest profit risks for operators.
Identity verification company Sumsub mentioned in an iGaming risk control report released in 2026 that 63.8% of gambling fraud cases are directly related to bonus abuse, and 83% of operators believe that the problem of bonus abuse is intensifying year by year. According to industry estimates, this kind of behavior erodes about 10% to 20% of the operator's marketing input every year.
🔴If a large platform invests $100,000 in various reward activities, among which $10,000 to $20,000 may not really bring long-term user conversion, but are eaten by the arbitrage team.
Another CRM-focused gambling marketing company, Optimove, also analyzed the new user data of many large gambling brands. They found that those players who just reached the highest reward threshold for the first recharge, the retention rate after 30 days is only 4%.
➡️Plus, if the player's betting pattern is also completely around receiving rewards, such as each bet only completes the minimum turnover requirements, then the retention rate of this batch of users even drops to 0.8%.
Nowadays, bonus hunters use residential IPs, browser fingerprint simulation, and even virtual devices, then use different payment methods and multiple sets of identity information to bypass the platform's risk control system. Some teams even have their own databases, which record the daily first charge ratio, turnover requirements, and withdrawal limits of various platforms.
So mature platforms need to invest a lot of budget to build risk control systems, and if they continue to increase the first charge ratio, the erosion of profits will be even greater.
📲Old platforms prefer to keep the budget for old players
Observing some mature platforms carefully, they actually prefer to distribute the benefits to the entire player lifecycle.
New players can also get moderate welcome rewards, but the main activities may be more biased towards continuous recharge players who can get high cashback, or VIP users have better exclusive activities.
The platform would rather give a $100 reward to a player who has recharged ten times and may continue to consume in the future, rather than to a Bonus hunter who leaves after completing the turnover.
Many people like to use the first charge ratio to judge whether a platform is powerful. In fact, the newer the platform, the more it relies on high first charges to buy traffic, the more mature the platform, the more it relies on the brand and long-term user retention.
—————
This is the only gambling industry knowledge channel on TG, this channel's audience is gambling industry executives. Produced by "Global iGaming Leader - PASA". Deep content analyzing the past, present, and future of the gambling industry is published daily.
This content is exclusively created byhttps://t.me/gamblingdeep. If you like our content, feel free to forward it.
Follow this channel to get a free copy of "Gambling Outbound Strategy, from Strategy to Practical Guide" report, message @Pasarose_bot after following to receive
More data reports: @pasa_research
Join the member group: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: www.pasa.news
