First Time Depositor

A first time depositor (FTD) is a newly registered player at the moment they fund their account with real money for the first time — the point at which a sign-up becomes a paying customer.

Definition

In iGaming, a First Time Depositor (FTD) is a registered user who makes their first genuine cash deposit into a gambling account, converting from a free registration into a real-money customer. The term is used both for the person and, loosely, for the deposit event itself, and it is the industry's standard milestone for measuring successful player acquisition. It sits one step beyond registration (creating an account) and before any wagering, so operators and affiliates track the registration-to-FTD conversion rate to judge how efficiently marketing turns interest into funded accounts. Because it marks the transition to real-money play, the first deposit is also the point at which identity (KYC), age, and affordability obligations bite hardest, and it is a common trigger for welcome bonuses.

Worked example

Suppose a marketing campaign drives 1,000 new registrations in a month, and 200 of those people go on to make a first real-money deposit. That gives 200 FTDs and a registration-to-FTD conversion rate of 200 / 1,000 = 20%. If the campaign cost 10,000 EUR in total, the cost per FTD (a common form of CPA, cost per acquisition) is 10,000 / 200 = 50 EUR. Under an affiliate deal that instead pays a fixed 100 EUR per FTD, an affiliate delivering those 200 first-time depositors would earn 200 × 100 = 20,000 EUR — regardless of whether those players later win, lose, or barely play. Note that many CPA agreements only count an FTD as "qualifying" once the player deposits a minimum amount (say 10 or 20 EUR) and sometimes wagers it, so the raw FTD count and the billable FTD count can differ.

Why it matters

The FTD is the headline acquisition metric across the whole industry: marketing budgets, affiliate CPA deals, and campaign performance are all measured in cost per FTD and FTD volume, making it a number executives watch to judge growth. For learners, it clarifies the funnel that turns a click into a paying customer (impression → registration → FTD → active player) and why registrations alone mean little until they convert into deposits. It also marks a critical player-protection boundary: the first deposit is when real money and real risk enter, so it is where KYC, age verification, and affordability checks must hold — and it should be understood as an acquisition milestone, not a measure of profit or any suggestion that depositing leads to returns.

Related

Note: The core concept is stable, but the exact qualifying definition varies by operator and contract: whether an FTD requires a minimum deposit, whether the funds must be wagered, how duplicate or self-excluded accounts are excluded, and the attribution window for crediting a marketing source all differ. The CPA amounts and conversion rate in the example are illustrative and vary widely by market, product, and channel. "FTD" is also used interchangeably for both the depositor and the deposit event, so confirm which is meant in a given report.