ARPPU
Average revenue generated per player who actually deposited or wagered in a period, excluding non-paying registrants.
Definition
ARPPU divides revenue (usually net gaming revenue) by the number of paying players, unlike ARPU which spreads revenue across every registered or active user including those who never funded an account. Because it strips out the free tier, ARPPU is typically much higher than ARPU and tracks the monetisation of the engaged base. Operators watch it by segment and cohort to see whether spend per active player is rising, or whether a headline revenue increase is really just more players at the same value. A rising ARPPU can be healthy growth, but it can also signal that revenue is concentrating in a shrinking group of very heavy players — a pattern that raises affordability and dependency concerns.
Worked example
NGR of 2,000,000 EUR across 40,000 paying players in a month gives an ARPPU of 50 EUR, even if the operator has 200,000 registered accounts (which would make ARPU only 10 EUR).
Why it matters
For a learner, it shows why 'revenue per user' depends heavily on whether you count non-payers. For a professional, it is a core monetisation KPI, but a healthy portfolio checks whether ARPPU growth comes from broad engagement or from a few at-risk high spenders.