A sportsbook back office is where you watch activity, look after players, set limits and keep the product running. For a play-for-fun sportsbook, where players bet free tokens and never real money, it's a lighter job than at a real-money book: no traders, no payments desk, no risk team. The Sportsbook's operator console gives you an overview, player and bet views, stake limits, maintenance mode, sports and league selection, team roles, an audit log and wallet reconciliation. Here's what each part does and a weekly routine that takes about half an hour.
Key takeaways
- The overview uses token words: tokens staked, net token result, token hold, tokens on open bets and active players.
- Blocking a player ends their open sessions within about a second. A player who asks to stop must be blocked (AUP 7.3(a)).
- Stake limits cover a minimum stake, maximum pre-match and live stakes, and a maximum return.
- Maintenance mode pauses betting in your sportsbook only, with your own message.
- Leagues are added one by one; markets can be hidden per sport on every plan.
- CSV export and the audit log come with Custom and Full; team roles are owner, admin and viewer.
On this page10 sections
- The overview: what the numbers mean
- Players: history, adjustments and blocking
- Bets: filters, timelines and CSV export
- Stake limits and maximum return
- Maintenance mode with your own message
- Sports, leagues and markets
- Team roles and the audit log
- Wallet reconciliation
- A weekly sportsbook back office routine
- Frequently asked questions
The overview: what the numbers mean
The Overview page is the first thing you see in the console. Every figure is a count of tokens with no monetary meaning.
| Figure | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Tokens staked | The stakes of all bets placed in the period, open or settled |
| Tokens returned | What settled bets gave back to players (returns, half-returns, refunded stakes) |
| Net token result | Settled tokens staked minus tokens returned |
| Token hold | Net token result as a percentage of settled tokens staked |
| Tokens on open bets | What all open bets would return right now if they all won |
| Active players | Players who opened a session in the period |
Here's how the numbers relate, with sample data only: say 1,250 bets staked 18,400 tokens this month, and 17,900 of that is on bets already settled. If settled bets returned 16,110 tokens, the net token result is 1,790 and the token hold is 10%. The 500 tokens staked on bets that are still open could return up to, say, 1,240 tokens if every one of them wins: that's your tokens on open bets.
What to do with these figures is different from a real-money book. A high token hold doesn't make you anything; it means players are running out of tokens faster, which is a signal to check your refill rules. A low one means balances are growing, which is fine until leaderboards stop meaning anything. Charts and breakdowns by sport, league and market sit under the headline numbers.
Watch active players against your plan's cap: up to 250 monthly active players on Free and up to 5,000 on Custom, with no cap on Full (fair use), at the time of writing (September 2026); see pricing. A monthly active player is someone who opens a session in a calendar month, counted once. Over the cap, new players see a "full this month" screen; players who already played that month keep playing.
Players: history, adjustments and blocking
Each player page shows their bets, their balance and every movement on it.
Balance adjustments. On the managed balance you can add or remove tokens by hand, and you give a reason each time. The reason appears in the player's history, so the next person on your team understands why a balance jumped. Keep reasons factual ("Refill after the outage on 12 Sept"). Don't put names, emails or other personal data in them; players are identified only by your pseudonymous id and a nickname.
Blocking. Block a player and they can't open sessions, their open sportsbook is told within about a second and shows that the account is on hold, and any bet they try is refused, including one already waiting for acceptance. Their open bets still settle normally. Unblocking lets them open new sessions; old sessions stay invalid.
Two cases where blocking isn't optional:
- A player asks to stop. You must honor a player's request to stop playing by blocking them (AUP 7.3(a)). Make the request easy: a line in your player notice and a contact that someone reads.
- Someone breaks your token rules. Multi-accounting to farm refills, trading accounts, or anything that suggests someone is trying to give tokens a value.
Bets: filters, timelines and CSV export
The Bets page lists every bet with filters by status, sport, date range, player and minimum stake. Open one and you get its selections and a timeline from placement to settlement, including a re-settlement if a result was corrected later. That timeline answers most player questions ("why is my bet still open?") without contacting anyone.
Most bets settle minutes after the final whistle; a few wait for official results or a check by our team. If a result is corrected later, the bet is re-settled and the balance follows.
On Custom and Full you can export the filtered list to CSV, up to 50,000 rows per export. Useful for a season recap, a leaderboard you publish yourself, or a question from your community about a particular match.
Stake limits and maximum return
Limits keep your leaderboard meaningful. Without them, one player with a big balance can go all-in on a long-odds accumulator and end the season in one evening. You can set:
| Limit | What it does | A starting point |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum stake | The smallest bet allowed | Around 1% of your starting balance |
| Maximum pre-match stake | The largest single pre-match stake | 10–25% of your starting balance |
| Maximum live stake | The largest single live stake | Lower than pre-match, since prices move |
| Maximum return | The most a single bet can return | A multiple of the starting balance that won't break your leaderboard |
The starting points are suggestions, not rules; tune them to your token economy. The betslip reads the same limits, so players see a warning before they submit rather than an error after.
Maintenance mode with your own message
Maintenance mode pauses bet placement in your sportsbook only. Everything else keeps working: players can browse matches and check their bets, and open bets still settle. You write the message players see, for example "Betting is paused while we reset the season. Back on Monday."
Use it for season resets, for moving from the managed balance to a seamless wallet, or when something on your own site is broken. The embed also tells your page when maintenance starts and ends, so you can hide your own "bet now" prompts.
Sports, leagues and markets
Under Sports and leagues you choose what your players see. Leagues are picked one by one from a catalog of more than a thousand; there's no select-all, which keeps your sportsbook focused on what your community follows. A newly added league starts showing matches within about two minutes.
Plan allowances apply: Free has 1 sport and up to 3 leagues; Custom has 5 leagues per sport plus packs of 5; Full has unlimited leagues, still picked one by one.
Under Markets you can hide markets per sport, on every plan. If your audience is casual, hiding the more technical lines makes match pages shorter and friendlier. Each match page still shows the full list of markets you haven't hidden.
Team roles and the audit log
The console has three roles:
- Owner: everything, including API keys and inviting teammates.
- Admin: everything except API keys, team members and wallet settings: players, limits, branding, leagues, maintenance.
- Viewer: read-only, for moderators or analysts who only need to look things up.
Seats depend on the plan: 1 on Free, 5 on Custom, 10 on Full. When someone leaves the team, remove their access the same day.
On Custom and Full the audit log records who changed what: a limit, a block, a balance adjustment, a branding change. When several moderators share a console, it's how you answer "who blocked this player and why".
Wallet reconciliation
On the managed balance there's little to reconcile: the ledger is ours and every movement is listed on the player's page.
On a seamless wallet, where your system keeps the balances and we call it for every movement, check Wallet → Reconciliation. It only lists what needs a person: credits or rollbacks that used up their retries, and similar cases. An empty page is the normal state. The seamless wallet integration guide explains each case.
A weekly sportsbook back office routine
For most communities this takes about 30 minutes a week:
- Overview. Compare active players with last week and with your plan's cap. Look at token hold: if it's climbing, players are running dry; check that your free refill is working and visible.
- Bets still open. Filter for bets open more than a day after their match. Most are waiting for official results; note any that players ask about.
- Player requests. Handle every "please stop my account" by blocking. Answer balance questions from the bet timeline.
- Blocks and adjustments. Skim the week's adjustments and blocks for anything without a clear reason.
- Leagues. Add leagues coming into season, remove the ones that ended.
- Reconciliation (seamless only). Confirm the page is empty, or resolve what's there.
- Recognition. Export or screenshot the leaderboard you publish, and hand out titles, badges or roles. Never prizes of value.
If you're about to launch, pair this with the launch checklist for a play-for-fun sportsbook. Streamers who run the console alongside a live show will find specific tips in the sportsbook for streamers guide, and HR or club organizers can see a smaller setup in the sports prediction league for teams article. The console is included on every plan; you can start on the Free plan (opens in a new tab) and have it open in a few minutes.
Frequently asked questions
What is a sportsbook back office?
It's the admin side of a sportsbook: where you see activity, look up players and bets, set stake limits, pause betting, choose sports and leagues, manage your team and check balances. In The Sportsbook it's the operator console at console.thesportsbook.app, included on every plan.
Do I need traders or a risk team to run a play-for-fun sportsbook?
No. Odds, results and settlement come with the platform, and nothing of value is staked. Your job is closer to community management: setting sensible stake limits, answering players, blocking accounts when needed and keeping your token rules fair.
How do I stop one player from betting?
Block them in the console under the player's page. Their open sessions end within about a second and they can't open new ones. Open bets still settle normally. If a player asks to stop playing, you must honor it by blocking them.
Can I export bets to a spreadsheet?
Yes, on Custom and Full. The bets list exports to CSV, up to 50,000 rows per export, with whatever filters you applied. The Free plan shows the same list and filters without the export.
Written by
The Sportsbook team
The people who build The Sportsbook. We have spent seven years building sportsbook software, and we write these guides from that work.
Last updated .