You don’t need a single depositor to make the casino affiliate model work for you. If you structure it like a broker—sourcing, onboarding, and activating other affiliates—your revenue becomes a portfolio of overrides instead of a volatile bet on one operator’s conversion curve.
Lower variance.
Deeper compounding.
Less customer support drama.
And if you do it right, you’ll sleep through VIP swings because someone else is handling player whales while you manage a B2B pipeline.
What a sub-affiliate stack really is (and why it’s not MLM)
Sub-affiliate (sometimes “two-tier”) means you earn an override when affiliates you refer generate commissionable revenue with a network or program.
There’s a single layer: you → your referred affiliate → the program.
You’re paid a small slice of their commission, not of their recruits’ recruits. No endless tiers, no pyramid optics. Think brokerage: you source talent, help them produce, and share in upside.
Some networks pay fixed bounties per activated affiliate plus a lifetime override on their monthly commission.
Others pay only the lifetime override. The winning pattern is simple: lifetime, uncapped, with clear event definitions (registration, FTD, net revenue) and row-level reporting you can audit.
The sub-affiliate P&L in one page
Your economics are a function of three levers: activation rate (referred affiliates who actually send traffic), time-to-first-revenue (how fast they produce), and lifetime override %.
Let’s put guardrails on the math.
- Activation rate: 20–40% when you pre-qualify prospects, <10% if you spray and pray.
- Time-to-first-FTD: 7–45 days depending on channel maturity.
- Lifetime override: 3–10% of the affiliate’s commission is common; 15% exists with the right volume or exclusivity.
A simple scenario table you can steal
| Cohort | Referred affiliates (month) | Activation rate | Avg commission per active affiliate (month) | Your override % | Your monthly override |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A (Month 1) | 40 | 25% | $600 | 10% | $600 |
| B (Month 2) | 40 | 30% | $600 | 10% | $720 |
| C (Month 3) | 40 | 30% | $700 | 10% | $840 |
| Rolling churn −10% | — | — | — | — | −$216 |
| Month 3 total | 120 | — | — | — | $1,944 |
Keep adding cohorts and your overrides compound even if your own lead-gen is steady. The compounding is the point.
Pipeline, not press releases: a broker’s operating model
Treat this like B2B sales.
You have sources (where affiliates live), a qualification rubric (do they actually do this), a consultative pitch (help me help you), a success plan (your onboarding), and retention (your community + deal flow).
The work is not writing “Join my sub-program” under a blog post; it’s building a recruiting and enablement engine that feels like a boutique agency for affiliates.
Where to find high-signal affiliate prospects (and filter fast)
Directories and public leaderboards are noisy; job boards, niche communities, and tooling lists are gold.
Look at who’s shipping content weekly, who runs tracking software, who buys media (their LinkedIn titles are a tell), and who asks operational questions in forums. When you outreach, filter by three fast signals:
- They operate in compliant GEOs you can place.
- They own audience—domain, newsletter, YouTube, paid channels—or have a system to buy it.
- They’ve shipped in the last 30 days. Dormant accounts don’t activate.
Positioning that converts: lead with deals, not platitudes
Affiliates don’t need a pep talk; they need reasons to redirect inventory.
You win with exclusives (better CPA/RS at the same brand), speed (introductions to managers who approve in 24 hours), and clarity (exact terms, geo, tracking method, cookie window, bonus compliance). Broker value is curation. Think “editor-in-chief of money” for their niche.
Your minimum viable asset pack
One focused landing page with a crystal CTA (“Get approved for X GEOs in 48 hours”), a simple calculator (“If you send 100 FTDs at $X, here’s your monthly”), a short library of high-performing creatives (brand-safe, compliant), and a one-page PDF that lists programs by GEO, product, and model. Pair it with a Calendly link and a two-email onboarding sequence. You can look like a pro in a weekend if your copy is precise and your promises are modest but true.
Tracking architecture so you can prove your value
Your credibility lives or dies on attribution and data hygiene.
Run a unique broker click_id for every referred affiliate’s applications and use separate subIDs per program so you can crystalize where their revenue originates. Push everyone to S2S tracking with postbacks keyed by click_id; pixels will lie to you in Safari-heavy markets.
Store UTC timestamps, currencies with applied FX, and event types (reg, FTD, deposit, net revenue, commission). If the program can’t give you row-level exports for your sub-affiliate tree, be cautious. You can’t fix what you can’t see.
Onboarding, activation, and the first 14 days
The first two weeks determine 80% of your LTV with that affiliate.
Book a 20-minute call. Align on GEOs, products, and traffic type they actually have. Give them two “fast start” offers (one casino, one sportsbook) with your best-known EPCs and the exact creative that has shipped for similar partners.
Offer to do a speed audit on their pages: title tags, CTAs, internal links, schema, and the three scroll-stoppers that lift CTR. Then set a date for a 10-day review. Specific. Measurable. Friendly, but with a spine.
A broker’s KPI sheet (and why it’s different from operator KPIs)
You’re measuring B2B unit economics, not player ARPU. Treat each affiliate as an account with its own funnel.
- Acceptance rate: approvals ÷ applications you submit.
- Activation rate: new affiliates with ≥1 FTD in 30 days ÷ approvals.
- Time-to-first-FTD: median days from approval to first FTD.
- ARPA: average monthly commission per active affiliate.
- Override yield: your override ÷ the affiliate’s commission.
- 90-day retention: affiliates with any activity at day 90 ÷ activations.
Trend by source and by GEO. Cull low-yield sources quickly; double down where activation is fast and ARPA grows.
Contracts and red flags unique to sub-affiliate deals
Your contract is weirdly simple and weirdly critical. You need three lines to be explicit: lifetime overrides, no clawback on your overrides if the program claws back the affiliate’s monthly commission due to unrelated products, and a right to row-level reporting for your sub-tree.
Watch out for “manager discretion” language on carryover, product bundling (sports losses eating casino wins), and opaque admin fees.
Shave risk exists here too; your shield is data access. If it’s “trust us,” don’t.
Negotiating better overrides without sounding needy
You get paid more when you lower their fear. Offer a monthly floor of qualified intros. Provide a basic compliance sheet on every referred affiliate (GEOs, traffic type, ad review).
Propose a step-up ladder: 8% override at < $10k monthly sub-tree commission, 10% above $25k, 12% above $50k. Tie step-downs to inactivity (90 days) so you don’t get stuck at hero rates forever. Calm, specific, businesslike.
Avoiding dependency on a single network
Brokers die when a single program sneezes. Build a portfolio across at least three networks or operator families and across products (casino, sportsbook, poker, bingo).
Seasonality and regulatory hiccups will hit them differently. When something freezes or a mid changes terms, you rotate intros without panic. Think treasury, not romance.
Compliance and ethics: your moat, not your headache
Sub-affiliates still need to disclose paid endorsements properly, especially if they use social.
Point them to the FTC’s Endorsement Guides and be explicit about labeling ads and affiliate relationships. If they run influencer traffic into regulated markets, link them to the UK ASA/Cap Code overview so they stop guessing. Set a norm: clear labels, age-gates where required, no “risk-free” language, no fake urgency. You’re not just protecting your name; you’re protecting the pipe.
FTC Endorsement Guides: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking
ASA (UK) influencer ad rules: https://www.asa.org.uk/advice-online/recognising-ads-social-media.html
A repeatable go-to-market that doesn’t feel spammy
Start with a weekly “offer intelligence” email—three high-signal deals with real constraints and why they convert. Add a monthly live clinic: “land a Tier-1 approval in 7 days,” “S2S postbacks without tears,” “bonus terms that don’t tank EPC.” Publish a short success teardown quarterly, never naming private numbers, always highlighting the boring levers that moved the needle: page speed, SERP intent match, internal link maps, CTR tests.
Make it easy to say yes. A crisp Typeform for new intros. A 2-slot weekly calendar for onboarding calls. A shared Notion or Google Sheet listing current offers by GEO, renewal dates, and bonus notes. People join you because you reduce friction and increase certainty.
Outreach that gets replies (templates you can adapt)
Short, direct, useful. That’s your tone.
Subject: Two fast approvals for {GEO} if you’re open to intros
Hey {FirstName}—saw your {site/channel}. If {GEO}/{product} is on your roadmap this month, I can get you approved at {Brand A} and {Brand B} with S2S, 30-day windows, and creative that’s shipped for peers. I work broker-side (no cost to you); I take the standard override from the program.
If you want, I’ll audit one page and send 3 fixes that lift CTR before we even talk. No forms; honest work.
Want me to share the two offers and exact terms?
{YourName} | {site} | slots Tue/Thu
Subject: Quick win: your {page/video} can add 0.5–1.0% CTR with 2 changes
Loved {specific asset}. Two tiny tweaks can move CTR in {GEO}. Happy to record a 5-minute Loom with the edits and intro you to {Brand} if you want to test. Broker-side; I get paid by the program, not you. Deal?
{YourName}
Activation sequences that actually activate
Day 0: approval email with the two starter offers, exact links, and a 10-minute “how to set S2S in {network}” Loom.
Day 3: check-in—have links gone live, need creative variants, any GEO blocks?
Day 7: micro-review—send the early funnel math (click → lander take-rate → reg) and fix the largest leak.
Day 14: celebrate the first FTD publicly in your community (with consent) and stack a second operator in the same GEO to A/B EPC. Keep the momentum visible; it breeds momentum.
Productizing your value (so you’re not a glorified intro bot)
Brokers who last package three things: a curated offer feed with brutal honesty about terms, a diagnostics toolkit (CTR swipe file, schema snippets, link maps, page speed templates), and a tiny community where affiliates trade creative iteratively. Don’t chase vanity Discord sizes; curate signal. Ten pros who ship beat a thousand lurkers.
Risk management when things get weird
Programs change managers, BI breaks, approvals freeze, and sometimes a mid evaporates. Your playbook is simple: require row-level exports monthly; keep private mirrors of key stats; move new intros elsewhere if reporting dies for more than a week; escalate calmly with specific click_ids and UTC times; and never route 80% of your pipeline to one place because the manager is fun on Telegram.
A realistic 90-day broker plan
Month 1: publish the landing, ship your first offer email, onboard ten affiliates, activate four, and get two to FTD. Expect $300–$800 in overrides late in the month if EPCs are reasonable.
Month 2: repeat with a higher bar; run your first clinic; push two affiliates into a second operator for redundancy. Aim for eight active affiliates and $1.5k–$3k overrides.
Month 3: curate your first exclusive (slightly better CPA/RS for your cohort), add a public case study, and cross-sell creative help to lift EPC. You should see $3k–$6k with ten to twelve active partners and a clear path to $10k as compounding kicks in.
The one page of legal you shouldn’t skip
Put a simple broker agreement in place with each program that states lifetime override for referred affiliates, your right to row-level data for your sub-tree, and your ability to communicate directly with the affiliate manager on operational issues. Put a lightweight participation agreement in place with each sub-affiliate so you can use anonymized performance snippets in your marketing (“X affiliates activated in {GEO}, median time-to-FTD 9 days”), and so you’re aligned on compliance expectations. Keep PII out of your systems. You don’t need it.
A quick cautionary tale (so you don’t repeat my scar)
We once funneled a dozen strong affiliates to a single network that had a fantastic bonus and fast approvals. Three months later, management changed; reporting exports broke; our override graph flat-lined while our partners still showed revenue. We had S2S logs, UTC stamps, and per-affiliate trees. The fix arrived in a week because our evidence was bulletproof and our traffic was portable. Without the logs—and without diversification—we’d have been in the apology business. Evidence and optionality are your leverage.
Your broker dashboard (what to watch daily)
Applications submitted, approvals waiting, new links live, first FTDs, ARPA trend by cohort, override yield by program, and 90-day retention by source. If something dips, it’s either deal quality, onboarding speed, or distraction. Fix the slowest step and the rest floats.
Turning this into an asset, not a side hustle
A sub-affiliate portfolio with documentation, dashboards, exclusive deals, a newsletter, and a small community is salable. Keep clean records, standardize your comms, and build playbooks someone else could run. Whether you ever sell or not, the discipline will make your income more predictable and your time less chaotic.
FAQ for the “Is this worth it?” skeptic
Isn’t 10% of someone else’s commission too small to matter? Not when it compounds across 20–50 active partners and survives VIP swings. The variance is lower and the long-tail is real.
What if programs shave my affiliates and my override suffers? Then you’re the perfect person to run audits: standardize S2S, demand row-level exports, and publish a quiet “trust list” inside your community. Partners that earn trust earn volume.
How do I avoid being lumped with MLMs? Stay at one tier, insist on real output, don’t charge affiliates to join anything, and never promise income. You’re a broker, not a guru.
If you want a head start, I’ve packaged the essentials so you don’t burn weeks reinventing checklists—offer matrix templates, sub-affiliate onboarding sequences, and a dead-simple override calculator. And when you’re ready to show affiliates tangible, useful resources on day one, point them to NOWG’s free tools for casinos—calculators, compliance checklists, and planning helpers they can use immediately while you handle the deals.
