A cheap registration without a KYC breakdown means nothing

Registering on a casino or bookmaker site takes a minute: name, email, password. Identity verification takes an hour to several days and requires documents. Between these two steps 60 to 90 percent of people drop off, and that is where the gap between the report and reality lies.

01Why vendors report registrations

Because they arrive quickly and cost little. By day two after launch there is already a number to show. CPA per registration in Tier-3 runs $1–3, in Tier-2 $5–15, and against market benchmarks that looks convincing.

But a registration without KYC is not a customer. The person cannot deposit, cannot play, generates no revenue. They exist only in the report. And if the vendor optimizes the campaign on registration cost, they are looking for the cheapest traffic that fills in a form, not the highest-quality traffic.

02What the funnel looks like step by step

Based on our data for 2025–2026, average iGaming figures: ad click to registration 3–12%, registration to completed KYC 15–40%, completed KYC to first deposit 40–65%. The end-to-end conversion from registration to deposit lands in the 8–25% corridor, consistent with our published benchmarks.

But the spread between sources is enormous. A channel delivering registrations at $2 with a 10% KYC rate costs $20 per verified user. A channel at $5 per registration with a 35% KYC rate costs $14. The second is more expensive on the top metric and cheaper on the bottom one.

03What to require from the vendor, and when a cheap registration is acceptable

A postback on KYC completion as a mandatory reporting point. Not instead of registration but in addition to it. Until that point exists, optimization runs blind: the system finds an audience eager to fill in forms, not an audience willing to confirm their identity.

The window between registration and KYC matters just as much: if a person does not complete verification within the first 48 hours, the probability of return drops below five percent. Hence a product requirement: verification should be embedded in the registration flow, not deferred.

During a test campaign whose goal is data, not payback. Fifteen to twenty days on cheap traffic produce enough registrations to see the KYC spread across sources. After that, sources with a KYC rate below 15% are switched off and budget is moved to those that cleared the threshold.

But even at the test stage a registration count with no KYC breakdown in the report is a red flag. If the vendor shows only the top of the funnel and cannot name the share that passed verification, they either have not set up tracking or they know the number is bad.