The iGaming Industry Has an Acquisition Addiction
Everyone wants the next FTD. But who is looking after the customer you already paid $250–$650 to acquire? Jörn-Peter Thiessen on why filling the funnel faster than it empties is becoming the most expensive habit in iGaming.
The iGaming Industry Has an Acquisition Addiction
Everyone wants the next FTD. But who is looking after the customer you already paid to acquire?
By Jörn-Peter Thiessen
Founder | VIP Legacy Club
Quick links: Meet Jörn · Traditional VIP programmes are dying · The perfect VIP department · What does a casino VIP host do? · Past VIP events · Free AI concierge
For years, the iGaming industry has been obsessed with one thing:
The next FTD.
More traffic.
More registrations.
More first-time depositors.
More affiliates.
More media buying.
More welcome offers.
Around 2018, I remember the philosophy at many larger online casino businesses becoming increasingly focused on acquisition.
There was a saying:
“Fill the funnel quicker than it can run empty.”
It summed up the strategy perfectly.
Players were leaving at the bottom?
No problem.
Put more players into the top.
Retention departments still existed, of course. CRM continued. Bonuses continued. Reactivation continued.
But in many organisations, genuine VIP relationship management started taking a back seat.
There was also a growing belief that customers were loyal primarily to the casino brand rather than to the individual VIP host.
Why invest heavily in personal relationships if you could simply keep acquiring another FTD?
For a while, when acquisition was relatively inexpensive and inventory plentiful, perhaps the economics allowed that thinking.
Today, those economics are changing dramatically.
The $250–$650 FTD Changes the Conversation
A March 2026 Yogonet analysis put some extraordinary numbers around the problem.
According to the article, the cost of acquiring a single first-time depositor in mature iGaming markets is now estimated at $250 to $650, while search CPMs for top-tier gambling keywords can exceed $350.
The article also cited an estimated global iGaming market of $117.5 billion in 2025, with substantial continued growth expected.
That sounds like fantastic news for the industry.
But there is another side to it.
As the market becomes more valuable, competition for the same customer becomes more expensive.
The industry can continue growing while the economics of acquiring an individual customer become progressively more difficult.
And that creates a very simple question:
If you just spent $250, $400 or $650 acquiring a customer, what are you doing to make sure you don't have to buy that customer all over again?
Source: Yogonet — “iGaming player acquisition costs are surging: How operators are rethinking casino bonus strategy,” 25 March 2026.
An FTD Isn't a Customer
This is where I think the terminology itself can sometimes influence the wrong behaviour.
We celebrate:
Registrations.
FTDs.
CPA.
Conversion rates.
Acquisition volumes.
But an FTD isn't yet a loyal customer.
It's the beginning of an opportunity to create one.
Imagine spending $500 acquiring someone.
They register.
They deposit.
Marketing celebrates the conversion.
Acquisition has done its job.
Then three weeks later the customer disappears.
What happened?
Maybe the games weren't right.
Maybe the welcome offer wasn't what they expected.
Maybe verification became frustrating.
Maybe they had a poor withdrawal experience.
Maybe support didn't resolve a problem.
Maybe they received irrelevant promotions.
Maybe another casino offered them something better.
Or maybe nobody ever bothered to find out.
So what happens next?
The operator goes back into the market and spends another $500 finding a replacement.
That is the acquisition addiction.
The Cheapest FTD May Be the One You Don't Have to Replace
This is where the economics become interesting.
Acquisition will always be essential.
Every business needs new customers.
But there needs to be a balance.
If the cost of acquisition continues rising, then improving retention can potentially become one of the most valuable investments an operator can make.
Consider the difference between:
Acquire → Deposit → Lose customer → Acquire replacement
and:
Acquire → Understand → Service → Retain → Build lifetime value
The second model requires a very different mentality.
Instead of asking only:
How cheaply can we acquire this customer?
Ask:
What is this relationship worth over three months, twelve months, three years or five years?
The Yogonet analysis describes exactly this strategic shift—from CPA-focused thinking towards lifetime-value models and retention-oriented bonus structures.
The industry is starting to recognise that buying the player is only the beginning.
Small Operators Cannot Win an Endless Bidding War
This issue becomes even more important for smaller operators.
If you're competing against companies with enormous marketing budgets, you're unlikely to win by simply bidding more aggressively for the same traffic.
The big operators can buy enormous media inventories.
They can dominate search terms.
They can sign major sponsorship agreements.
They can spend millions on brand advertising.
A smaller operator cannot always outspend them.
But perhaps it can outserve them.
That's a completely different competition.
Know your best customers better.
Respond faster.
Understand what they like.
Give them excellent service.
Create appropriate cashback programmes.
Invite them to smaller, personal events.
Create occasional larger experiences.
Give valuable customers access to somebody who actually knows who they are.
Don't try to beat the largest operator at being large.
Beat them at being personal.
Acquisition Gets the First Deposit. Retention Creates the Business.
Yesterday I wrote about why the traditional Bronze/Silver/Gold/Diamond approach to VIP management is becoming outdated.
The central argument was simple:
Bronze isn't a personality.
The same principle applies here.
An FTD isn't a customer.
It's the beginning of an opportunity to create one.
The winners of the next decade won't necessarily be the casinos capable of buying the most traffic.
They'll be the operators that become exceptionally good at recognising which customers are worth retaining, understanding why they stay, knowing why they leave and building experiences that give them a reason to come back.
Acquisition gets the first deposit.
Relationship, product and experience determine whether there is a hundredth.
Stop Using AI Only to Send Another Bonus
This is another area where I believe the industry has an enormous opportunity.
Many operators are investing heavily in AI, predictive analytics and real-time automation.
A player reaches a certain behavioural threshold.
The system responds.
Send a bonus.
Trigger free spins.
Send a push notification.
Offer cashback.
Launch another reactivation campaign.
That's clever technology.
But we're still asking an old question:
How do we get the customer to play again?
AI allows us to ask a much more interesting question:
Why isn't the customer playing?
Those are completely different questions.
Before automatically sending another bonus, perhaps AI should investigate:
Did something go wrong?
Was there an unresolved support issue?
Did the customer have a poor withdrawal experience?
Did they wait too long? Was verification frustrating? Was communication poor?
Are we sending irrelevant offers?
Why send free spins to somebody who consistently demonstrates a preference for something else?
Do they prefer another product?
Perhaps the customer's interests have changed.
Do they want less communication?
Personalisation also means understanding when someone doesn't want another email, SMS or push notification.
Would they benefit from human service?
Perhaps this is the moment when automation should stop and a real person should step in.
And, critically:
Are there responsible-gambling indicators that mean marketing should stop altogether?
That's a far more sophisticated use of AI than simply finding the optimal moment to deliver another promotion.
AI Should Find the Problem Before It Finds the Promotion
Imagine a valuable customer suddenly stops playing.
Traditional automation might say:
Inactive seven days → send bonus.
But imagine AI looking deeper.
The customer contacted support twice.
They attempted a withdrawal.
The withdrawal took longer than normal.
They contacted support again.
Their last conversation had negative sentiment.
Then they stopped playing.
Do you really think the answer is:
“Here's 50 free spins!”
The customer may not want a bonus.
They may want somebody to acknowledge that something went wrong.
That's where AI and human service should work together.
AI identifies the problem.
The VIP host receives the context.
The host contacts the customer:
“I noticed you had an issue last week. I've looked into it. Can I help?”
That interaction can be worth considerably more than another automated promotion.
Your Retention Department Should Know Why Customers Leave
Most businesses obsess over why customers convert.
Which advertisement?
Which affiliate?
Which keyword?
Which landing page?
Which welcome offer?
Which creative?
But how much effort goes into understanding the opposite end of the journey?
Why did they leave?
If you acquired 10,000 FTDs and 7,000 disappeared, those 7,000 customers are telling you something.
Perhaps the product has a problem.
Perhaps payments have a problem.
Perhaps your bonus strategy has a problem.
Perhaps customer support has a problem.
Perhaps your VIP programme has a problem.
Perhaps you're acquiring the wrong traffic in the first place.
Churn isn't simply a retention statistic.
It's customer feedback written in behaviour.
Bring Back the Relationship
This is why I believe operators that continue investing in genuine VIP relationships have an opportunity.
That doesn't mean returning to irresponsible practices where hosts are simply incentivised to extract another deposit from a player.
Quite the opposite.
Reward hosts for responsible, sustainable retention.
Give them manageable customer portfolios.
Give them good data.
Give them AI tools.
Allow them to understand customer preferences.
Let them solve problems.
Give them the ability to arrange appropriate rewards, cashback and experiences.
And where customers enjoy personal interaction, meet them.
Have dinner.
Play golf.
Invite them to an event.
Organise a cruise.
Create something memorable.
Not every customer wants that.
That's precisely the point.
Find out what this customer wants.
Cashback Isn't Just About Money
Even something as simple as cashback can be approached differently.
For one player, weekly cashback may be exactly what they value.
Another may prefer a different type of recognition.
Another may value faster service far more than another promotion.
Another loves events.
Another wants complete privacy.
Again, the answer isn't:
Give everyone more.
The answer is:
Understand everyone better.
That's where smaller operators can sometimes have an advantage.
Scale makes acquisition powerful.
But scale can also make relationships impersonal.
Acquisition and Retention Shouldn't Be Competing Departments
Perhaps this is the biggest organisational change I'd make.
Stop treating acquisition and retention as two largely separate worlds.
Acquisition shouldn't simply deliver an FTD and walk away.
Retention shouldn't simply receive a customer and start sending promotions.
They should share one objective:
Profitable, sustainable customer lifetime value.
That means asking:
Where did this customer come from?
Why did they choose us?
What did they expect?
Did we deliver it?
Did they make a second deposit?
Did they stay 30 days?
90 days?
Six months?
A year?
If they left, why?
If they became valuable, what caused that?
If they stayed for five years, what did we do right?
Those answers should then flow back into acquisition.
Maybe the cheapest traffic isn't actually the best traffic.
A $250 FTD who disappears tomorrow may be considerably more expensive than a $500 FTD who remains a satisfied customer for years.
From FTD to LTV
That is the shift I believe the industry needs to make.
Stop celebrating the FTD as the finish line.
It's the starting line.
The question isn't simply:
How many customers did we acquire this month?
It's:
How many relationships did we begin that are still valuable a year later?
That changes how you think about marketing.
It changes bonuses.
It changes CRM.
It changes VIP.
It changes AI.
It changes how hosts are compensated.
And ultimately, it changes how you calculate the true value of acquisition.
The Next Decade Will Belong to Operators Who Can Keep Customers
The iGaming industry isn't going to stop acquiring.
Nor should it.
But the days when you could simply keep filling the funnel faster than customers ran out of the bottom are becoming increasingly expensive.
When an FTD can cost hundreds of dollars, every avoidable customer loss matters.
The operators that thrive won't necessarily be those with the largest advertising budgets.
They'll be the ones that combine intelligent acquisition with exceptional retention.
Use data to understand behaviour.
Use AI to identify problems—not merely promotional opportunities.
Use responsible-gambling systems to recognise when marketing should stop.
Use human hosts where relationships add value.
Use cashback and rewards intelligently.
Create memorable experiences for customers who value them.
And above all, stop treating the first deposit as the objective.
An FTD isn't a customer.
It's an opportunity to create one.
Because acquisition may get you the first deposit.
Relationship, product, trust and experience determine whether there will ever be a hundredth.
If you want a host-led relationship rather than another welcome funnel, meet Jörn or start with the free AI concierge.