Betting churn isn't a curve — it's a cliff at deposit 2

Betting churn isn't a curve — it's a cliff at deposit 2

Churn cohort (a group of players tracked by their join month to measure who's still depositing over time) in iGaming doesn't decay smoothly. The drop concentrates at one point.

Shape across ~12 tracked FTD cohorts, % still active by month:
— Month 1: 100%
— Month 2: 42%
— Month 3: 31%
— Month 6: 19%
— Month 12: 11%

The entire economic question lives between month 1 and month 2: roughly 58% never make a second deposit. After that, the curve flattens — players who survive to deposit 3 are remarkably sticky, with 11-month retention near 35% of the deposit-3 cohort.

This reshapes where effort pays:
— Optimizing month-6 retention barely moves LTV; the survivors are already loyal.
— The leverage is entirely in the deposit-1-to-2 conversion — onboarding, second-deposit bonus timing, first-loss reactivation.

On RevShare, brands with strong second-deposit mechanics are worth a lower headline rate.

Benchmark of the day: ~58% of betting FTDs never deposit twice — the deposit-2 conversion is worth more than every later retention lever combined.