Breakage
The share of issued bonus value that players never convert into withdrawable money — the gap between promotional face value and real cost.
What it means
Breakage is bonus value that expires, is forfeited, or is lost during wagering before it can be withdrawn. Borrowed from gift-card and loyalty accounting, it captures the difference between what an operator issued and what it actually paid out. A campaign issuing a million euros of bonus credit with 90% breakage cost roughly a hundred thousand euros in converted value, not a million.
Why it matters for operators
Tracking promotional spend in absolute issued value is the most common costing error in iGaming marketing, because issued value and real cost differ by roughly an order of magnitude. Breakage is driven by the terms: the wagering requirement multiplied by the house edge, game weighting, expiry windows and max cashout all push it up. High breakage isn't automatically good news, though — it can mean terms so demanding that players disengage, which shows up later as churn rather than as savings. The useful pairing is breakage against retention, not breakage alone.
Example
A welcome offer at 35x wagering on 96% RTP games produces expected losses of 140% of the bonus during clearing, so most balances are gone before conversion. If 8% of recipients convert and withdraw under a 5x cap, the campaign's real cost is a small fraction of the headline promotional budget — and the finance team reporting the headline figure is overstating spend substantially.