A price is a statement about risk
Every commercial model in B2B gambling answers one question: who carries the risk that the product does not perform? A pure revenue share puts it on the supplier, which earns nothing if the operator's players do not play. A fixed fee puts it on the operator, which pays whether or not the content earns. Everything else in this lesson, from minimum guarantees to tiered commission and loss participation, is a way of dividing that risk more precisely.
Sellers who understand this sell better, because the operator's objections to a price are almost always objections to the risk allocation. A head of casino who says "your rate is too high" often means "I am not confident your games will perform in my lobby, so I do not want to commit". The answer to that is rarely a lower rate. It is usually a different structure.
This lesson describes the models in use, using the language suppliers themselves use in their annual reports and regulatory filings, then works through the arithmetic of a deal from both sides. The background to who pays whom across the industry is in The iGaming Value Chain, and reading these companies' reported numbers is covered in Reading iGaming Financial Results.
The revenue-share family
Revenue share is the default for content and for most platforms. The supplier takes a percentage of the gaming revenue its product generates at the operator. The headline percentage matters less than the base it is applied to.
Share of gross gaming revenue. GGR is stakes less winnings. A share of GGR is the simplest base to audit, because it comes straight out of the game logs. Games Global, in its 2024 US listing documents, described its model in exactly these terms: the operator "pays us a percentage of the operator's GGR derived from our games". Evolution's 2025 annual report describes its main revenue line as commission "calculated as a percentage of the operators' winnings generated via the Company's casino offering", which is the same idea expressed from the operator's side of the table.
Share of net gaming revenue. NGR is GGR after deductions that the contract defines: typically bonuses and free play, sometimes gaming tax, sometimes payment costs. Kambi's 2025 annual report explains that its commission is a revenue share of operators' GGR "less deductible costs, such as certain capped marketing incentives and tax (i.e. NGR)". Note the word "capped": the supplier limits how much of the operator's promotional spend can be deducted before its share is calculated. Light & Wonder's 2025 Form 10-K says its iGaming business is typically paid on "variable consideration, such as a percentage of net gaming revenue", and Inspired Entertainment's 2025 10-K describes its interactive revenue in the same way, with around 100 per cent of the segment's revenue recurring under contracts that averaged three years.
Tiers. Rates usually step with volume. Kambi's report says some contracts "include tiers with lower commission rates applied to higher levels of sports betting revenues", reset each year. Tiers that fall as volume rises reward the operator for growth and are the commonest concession a supplier makes to a large account.
The practical consequence for a seller: two quoted rates are not comparable until you know their bases. Consider a hypothetical operator whose games generate 100 units of GGR in a month, which grants bonuses worth 15 units and pays gaming tax equal to 20 units. Its NGR on a "GGR less bonuses and tax" definition is 65 units.
| Quoted rate | Base | Supplier receives | Equivalent rate on GGR |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12% | GGR (100) | 12.0 | 12.0% |
| 15% | NGR (65) | 9.75 | 9.75% |
| 18% | NGR (65) | 11.7 | 11.7% |
An operator comparing a 12 per cent GGR offer with an 18 per cent NGR offer may think the second is dearer. Under these assumptions it is cheaper. A good seller does this arithmetic before the buyer does and presents the rate on the base the buyer uses internally.
Fixed fees, subscriptions and usage pricing
Fixed pricing is common where the supplier's cost is fixed per customer, or where the operator wants budget certainty.
The two listed sports data companies publish the clearest description. Sportradar's 2025 Form 20-F says client contracts are typically either "fixed-fee recurring", with "a guaranteed minimum recurring fee for a specified number of events, with incremental per-event fees thereafter", or a "revenue share" based on a percentage of the client's GGR, "typically with minimum payment guarantees". In 2025, 67 per cent of its revenue came from fixed-fee recurring arrangements and 33 per cent from revenue share. Genius Sports' 2025 Form 20-F uses almost identical words for its own fixed and variable contracts, the variable kind based on a share of GGR or NGR.
Playtech shows how many fee types one business can run at once. Its 2025 full-year results split B2B revenue of €688.3 million into licensee fees based on customers' gaming revenue (€426.4 million), fixed fees (€53.4 million), cost-based fees for dedicated teams (€63.7 million), hardware (€14.6 million), SaaS (€118.1 million, up 48 per cent) and an additional B2B services fee (€12.1 million). SaaS in this sense is a lighter, often self-service licence of technology that can itself be charged as a fixed fee, a revenue share or on cost.
Per-transaction and per-check pricing is the norm for payments, identity verification, KYC and geolocation vendors, whose cost rises with every transaction they process. Prices are quoted per check or per transaction, or as a percentage of value moved, with volume bands. The selling problem is different: the operator compares unit prices across vendors line by line, so the seller has to win on coverage (the payment method or data source the operator's players and regulator need), approval rates and reliability, and must show what a failed check costs the operator in lost deposits.
Minimum guarantees, set-up fees and dedicated services
A minimum guarantee converts a revenue share into a revenue share with a floor. Genius Sports says its sportsbook contracts run two to five years and are typically structured with guaranteed minimum payments, and that about 60 per cent of its 2025 revenue was recurring revenue from contractual minimum guarantees. Playtech books the difference between a licensee's actual performance and its contractual minimum as a separate revenue item, which tells you minimum guarantees are triggered often enough to report.
Sportradar's managed trading service shows a more complex hybrid: the fee is the higher of an agreed minimum fee and a revenue share, and "most MTS contracts also include a loss participation clause", so the supplier that trades the book shares in its losing months as well as its winning ones.
Set-up fees recover integration cost and signal commitment. Evolution lists set-up fees "invoiced to new customers in conjunction with the launch of their casino offering" as a smaller income source. Playtech recognises set-up fees over the life of the contract, with an average contract period of 36 months, which also tells a seller roughly how long a typical licensee contract runs at that company.
Dedicated services carry their own fees. Evolution charges monthly dedicated table fees to operators that opt for their own branded tables, varying with the game, number of tables and active hours. The broader point is that anything built for one customer alone (a branded studio, a bespoke game, a dedicated trading team) is priced on cost plus margin, not on revenue share, because no other operator will pay for it. Live Casino Operations covers dedicated tables in detail.
Jackpots, exclusivity and marketing support
Jackpot contributions. On a networked progressive jackpot, a slice of every qualifying stake funds the shared prize pool. The supplier's charge for running the network is separate from that contribution: Games Global's filing describes a licence fee "determined as a percentage of the jackpot" for its progressive games. A seller of jackpot content needs to explain three numbers to an operator: the contribution rate (which affects the game's return to player), the supplier's fee, and who funds the seed when a jackpot is won.
Exclusivity. An operator asking for exclusive rights to a game, a product or a market is asking the supplier to forgo revenue from every competitor, so exclusivity is priced: a higher revenue share, a minimum guarantee, a fixed fee or a shorter window. Exclusive windows on new games (a few weeks before general release) are common and cheap to give. Exclusivity over a whole product category is rare and is usually time-limited, as GAN's filings illustrate: its exclusive casino arrangement with FanDuel ended in January 2023, after which FanDuel was free to buy casino platform services elsewhere.
Marketing support. Content suppliers frequently fund promotions on their own games: free-round budgets, tournaments, prize drops and network promotions across operators. Economically this is a discount paid in promotion rather than in rate. It is often better for both sides than a rate cut, because it drives play on the supplier's titles specifically. It must be accounted for in the contract, because promotional costs may later appear as deductions in the operator's NGR calculation.
A worked comparison: three ways to price the same deal
A hypothetical mid-sized slot studio is negotiating with a hypothetical operator in a regulated European market. The studio offers three structures:
- Option A: 12 per cent of the GGR its games generate.
- Option B: a fixed fee of 15,000 a month for the full portfolio.
- Option C: 10 per cent of GGR with a monthly minimum guarantee of 8,000.
Nobody knows how well the games will perform in this lobby, so both sides model three scenarios for the monthly GGR the studio's games generate.
| Monthly GGR from the studio's games | Option A: 12% | Option B: fixed 15,000 | Option C: 10% with 8,000 minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weak: 60,000 | 7,200 | 15,000 | 8,000 |
| Expected: 150,000 | 18,000 | 15,000 | 15,000 |
| Strong: 300,000 | 36,000 | 15,000 | 30,000 |
How it looks to the operator. Option B is cheapest if the games perform strongly and most expensive if they flop. In the weak case the operator pays an effective 25 per cent of GGR. Option A costs least in the weak case and aligns the studio with performance. Option C sits between them: a modest floor, a lower rate, and a cost that rises with success.
How it looks to the studio. Option B gives predictable revenue, valuable to a small studio with a payroll to meet, but caps the upside. Option A is the highest expected value only if the studio believes in its games and the operator will promote them. Option C protects against the operator that integrates the games and then gives them no lobby position, which is the commonest way a content deal disappoints.
The question underneath the table is lobby placement. A revenue share is only worth what the operator's promotion makes it worth, so experienced sellers trade rate for commitments: a share of top-of-lobby slots, a launch campaign, inclusion in the operator's tournaments. A studio might accept Option A at 11 per cent in exchange for guaranteed placement, which is a better deal than 12 per cent without it.
How the mix shows up in the filings
Revenue mix tells a seller what a competitor's business is optimised for, and customer concentration tells you how much any one account matters to it.
| Company and period | Mix disclosed | Concentration disclosed |
|---|---|---|
| Evolution, FY2025 | Live casino €1,772.6m of €2,066.5m net revenue, RNG €294.0m | Largest customer about 12%, five largest about 39%, about 870 customers |
| Sportradar, FY2025 | 67% fixed-fee recurring, 33% revenue share | Largest client 6.6%, top ten 26.3% |
| Genius Sports, FY2025 | About 60% of revenue from contractual minimum guarantees | One customer 13% |
| Kambi, FY2025 | Turnkey sportsbook 87% of revenue | Three largest customers 35% |
| Playtech, FY2025 | Licensee fees €426.4m of €688.3m B2B revenue | Single customer about 14.4% of continuing revenue |
All figures come from the filings cited above. The table is a starting point for a sales conversation, not a ranking. A supplier whose top three customers provide a third of revenue negotiates differently with those three than with everyone else, and a seller from a smaller competitor should know which operators are that supplier's anchor accounts before trying to displace it.
Pricing discipline for the seller
Four habits separate sellers who protect margin from those who give it away.
Price the base before the rate. Agree the revenue definition, the deductions and any caps on deductions first. A rate negotiated before the base is a rate the buyer can erode later.
Build in escalation. Genius Sports notes that many of its customer contracts "have already built-in price escalators", and that most of its 2025 betting revenue growth came from existing customers through renewals and renegotiations. A multi-year fixed fee without indexation is a price cut every year.
Trade, never give. Every concession should buy something: a tier reduction for a longer term, a lower rate for placement, a minimum guarantee waived for exclusivity in a market. Lesson five develops this into a full trade-off table.
Know your floor. Calculate the cost to serve each account (integration, certification per market, account management, hosting) before quoting. A large operator at a deeply tiered rate may be strategically valuable and still lose money for years.
The next lesson follows the deal from a signed term sheet through RFPs, integration, certification and supplier licensing to the day revenue starts, which is the date a sales forecast actually depends on.