Gross Gaming Revenue Explained: How Tribal Gaming Is Measured
The most-cited figure in Indian gaming is also the most misunderstood. A plain-language guide to what GGR is — and isn't.
Every summer, the same number leads the tribal gaming headlines: a single, enormous figure for the industry's gross gaming revenue, or GGR. It anchors annual reports, press releases and analyst notes, and it is almost always presented as the definitive measure of how the sector is doing. Yet GGR is one of the most misread metrics in gaming. Understanding exactly what it captures — and, just as important, what it excludes — is essential to reading any tribal gaming story accurately.
What gross gaming revenue actually is
Gross gaming revenue is the amount a casino keeps from wagering after paying out winnings, before any expenses. On a slot machine, if players wager $100 and the machine pays back $91 in winnings, the GGR is $9 — the "hold." Across a full casino, GGR is simply the sum of that hold across every machine and table over a period of time. It is sometimes called "win," and it is the number regulators use because it is clean, auditable and comparable across properties.
Critically, GGR is not the total amount wagered. That larger figure — often called "handle" or "coin-in" — can be many times higher, because the same dollar gets bet, paid out and bet again throughout a session. Confusing handle with revenue is one of the most common errors in gaming coverage, and it can overstate a market's size by an order of magnitude.
GGR is what the house keeps after paying winners. It is not what players wagered, it is not the casino's profit, and it is not the tribe's economic impact.
What GGR leaves out
The most important thing to understand about GGR is everything it does not include. It is a top-line revenue figure, not profit. Out of that number a casino still has to pay employees, utilities, marketing, regulatory fees, debt service and construction costs. A property can post rising GGR and shrinking margins at the same time if its expenses climb faster than its win.
GGR also excludes non-gaming revenue entirely. Hotel rooms, restaurants, concerts, spas, golf and retail — increasingly the amenities that define a modern tribal resort — generate substantial income that sits outside the GGR figure. As tribes build destination properties, an ever-larger share of their total revenue comes from these non-gaming sources that the headline number never reflects. That is why a resort's economic footprint can dwarf what its GGR alone would suggest.
Finally, GGR is not the same as economic impact. The community benefit tribes report — jobs supported, government services funded, dollars circulated through local economies — is a broader calculation that layers non-gaming revenue, employment and downstream spending on top of gaming win. Reports like our 2025 Economic Impact Report capture that fuller picture; GGR is only the gaming-floor slice of it.
Who measures it, and how the regions work
For tribal gaming, the authoritative GGR figure comes from the National Indian Gaming Commission, which compiles independently audited financial statements from every gaming operation and reports a national total each year. The commission divides the country into eight geographic regions, allowing it to publish not just a national number but a breakdown showing which parts of Indian Country are growing fastest. Those regions are why you will see references to the Sacramento region leading all others, or the Southeast posting the sharpest growth — they are the NIGC's own reporting units, not state lines. The commission funds its oversight through fees assessed on that revenue, a mechanism explained in our guide to how the NIGC is funded.
Because the NIGC only regulates Indian gaming, its GGR total covers the tribal segment alone — commercial casinos and state lotteries are counted separately by other bodies. That makes the figure a precise read on tribal operations, but it also means comparing it directly to "total U.S. gambling" requires adding in those other segments.
Reading GGR wisely
GGR is a genuinely useful number. It is standardized, audited and comparable year over year, which is exactly why regulators and analysts rely on it. The pitfalls come from asking it to do work it was never designed for — treating it as profit, as economic impact, or as the total gambling activity in a market. A related distinction shapes how gaming is classified in the first place, since Class II and Class III games are regulated differently even though both contribute to the same GGR total; our Class II vs Class III explainer and the broader Legal Guide cover that framework.
The practical takeaway is simple. When a record GGR figure crosses the headlines, read it as what it is: the amount tribal casinos kept from gaming after paying winners, before paying anything else. It is a powerful indicator of the industry's direction, but it is the first line of the story, not the whole of it.