Fast Track has launched True Value, a new product designed to measure the underlying economic value of player activity from the first completed session.
The company said the product separates the value of play from the influence of luck, giving operators another measure to use when making commercial decisions.
Fast Track said gross gaming revenue (GGR), the industry’s traditional measure of player value, reflects financial outcomes rather than the underlying value of play. A large win can make a valuable player appear unprofitable, while a losing streak can make an affiliate’s traffic appear more valuable than it is. GGR records what happened to the money, not what the play was worth.
True Value calculates the underlying value of a session by estimating what an operator would earn if the same pattern of play were repeated millions of times.
The product is based on Fast Track’s gameplay risk engine and considers game mathematics, player behaviour and bonus mechanics. It accounts for factors including games played, return-to-player rates, volatility, stake sizes, sequence of play, and bonus mechanics such as wagering requirements.
“Operators make decisions every day about which players to recognise, which offers to continue and which acquisition partners to invest in,” said Simon Lidzén, co-founder and CEO of Fast Track. “Those decisions deserve a better foundation than waiting for luck to average out.”
“With True Value, we have now found a better way. I look forward to this becoming the new industry standard, helping operators truly understand where value is created and make informed decisions about where to invest.”
Fast Track said the launch is supported by an analysis of 1.7 million sessions across several brands, examining the relationship between GGR and True Value at both individual-session and larger sample levels.
Only 2.9% of individual sessions had GGR within 10% of their True Value. In a random-sampling analysis, 250,000 sessions were needed before nine in 10 samples fell within that range.
Fast Track said True Value can be used for player segmentation, bonus evaluation, and affiliate assessment. In one deployment, it identified several hundred players whose value exceeded the operator’s threshold for its high-value segment, but fewer than half had been classified in that segment.
“GGR tells you what the money did. True Value tells you what the play was worth. Both matter, but they answer different questions,” said Ed Dickerson, director of product at Fast Track.
Dickerson added that the product measures completed activity rather than attempting to predict everything about a player’s future based on a single session.
“More sessions build a richer picture of the player,” he said. “What operators no longer have to wait for is an understanding of what those completed sessions were worth.”
The product will be showcased at SBC Summit in Lisbon at stand A311.