Best practices: How do casinos use affiliate marketing as a growth strategy?

Casinos don’t grow by guessing. They grow by plugging into other people’s audiences. That’s exactly what affiliate marketing gives them: a predictable way to acquire players, pay only for performance, and scale into new geos without hiring whole marketing teams in every country. When it’s done right, affiliates become an extension of the casino’s own growth engine.

Here’s how smart casinos actually use affiliate marketing in 2026—and what separates operators who print money from those who complain, “Affiliates are too expensive.”

1. They treat affiliates like a real acquisition channel, not a side hustle

Weak casinos launch an affiliate program because “everyone has one.” Strong casinos launch it like they’d launch paid search: with goals, caps, fraud rules, reporting, promos, and SLAs.

That means:

• clear KPIs (FTD, KYC-approved players, first settled bet, net gaming revenue after x days)
• payout models defined per geo and per traffic source
• a process for vetting affiliates before they get links
• promo calendars so affiliates always have something to push

Why it matters: Affiliates are very good at sending traffic, but they hate ambiguity. If you don’t tell them what “a qualified player” is, they will guess—and their guess will never match your finance team’s definition.

2. They pick the right commission model for the right partner

There is no single “best” commission model in iGaming. There is only the one that aligns casino risk with affiliate motivation.

• Revenue share is perfect for content portals, comparison sites, streamers, and communities that can send high-intent, evergreen traffic. They accept slower payouts because the lifetime value is high.
• CPA is perfect for media buyers and arbitrage affiliates who run paid ads, test fast, scale fast, and need money upfront to reinvest.
• Hybrid (smaller CPA + smaller RevShare) is the grown-up model for operators who want volume but also want affiliates to care about player quality.

The best casinos offer all three—but they don’t offer them to everyone. They run tiered deals based on traffic quality, country, and fraud score.

3. They localize the offer before they recruit the affiliate

The fastest way to burn your reputation in the affiliate space is to tell a Polish, Brazilian, or Japanese affiliate, “We only have English banners.” By 2026, affiliate marketing in iGaming will be fully localized—language, currency, payment methods, promo copy, and even holiday campaigns.

A localized funnel increases conversion rate → better EPC for the affiliate → more traffic sent to you. That’s why good operators build the funnel first and recruit affiliates second.

What gets localized:

• landing pages and registration flows
• creative packs (static, HTML5, stories, reels thumbs)
• payment methods (Pix, Boleto, Sofort, local cards)
• bonuses (Ramadan, Carnaval, Oktoberfest, derby weekends)

4. They report like a grown-up brand

Affiliates don’t just want to be paid. They want to know:

• which pages convert best
• which geos are overperforming
• whether their traffic is hitting KYC or getting rejected
• what their players actually do after deposit

Casinos that give this visibility get more traffic. Casinos that hide everything get “I’ll test you again later.”

5. They use fraud prevention, not guesswork

Casino affiliate fraud is annoying because it’s subtle: VPN traffic, incentivized signups, duplicate devices, bonus abuse, or click injection from shady media networks. If you don’t detect it early, you end up paying affiliates for players who will never pass KYC or will immediately cash out bonuses.

Best practice is to combine:

1. pre-vetting (who is this affiliate, where do they promote, do they run black-hat PPC on brand keywords?)
2. real-time checks (IP, device, velocity, country mismatches)
3. post-conversion validation (did the player actually deposit, did AML/KYC pass, did they bet?)

6. They run promo calendars like e-commerce

Casinos that only say “welcome bonus 100%” all year round get ignored. Affiliates need fresh angles to create content, reels, and email blasts. Smart operators plan recurring themes:

• payday promos in local markets
• sports events (Euro, Copa, Champions League, Super Bowl equivalents)
• new slot launches
• loyalty boosts and reloads
• “bring back inactive players” campaigns

7. They segment affiliates and pay attention to their traffic source

Not all affiliates are equal, and casinos that pretend they are end up overpaying. The most successful programs keep separate “buckets”:

• SEO portals and comparison sites → consistent, high-LTV, slower volume
• media buyers/ASO affiliates → faster volume, spikier quality, stricter validation rules
• streamers/Telegram/influencers → high influence, sometimes lower KYC rates, need tailored landers
• arbitrage/ad networks → need caps, country rules, and automatic rejection for forbidden GEOs

8. They go cookieless and S2S for social and mobile

2026 is not the year to rely on browser cookies—especially not for iOS users coming from Instagram, Telegram, TikTok, or in-app browsers. Casinos that still do that are quietly losing attribution to “direct / unknown.”

For iOS acquisition, SKAN/AdAttributionKit and Android Privacy Sandbox are the new norm. A tracker that can ingest those aggregate postbacks and still map them to the affiliate/offer level is what keeps your program future-proof.

9. These systems connect affiliate data with casino data.

The fastest way to ruin relationships is to tell affiliates, “You have 100 FTDs,” and then 3 days later tell them, “Actually, 41 passed KYC.” Proper programs run two-step attribution:

1. marketing attribution (who sent the player?)
2. business validation (is this player eligible for payout?)

When your affiliate software can receive status updates—KYC passed, bonus abused, chargeback, suspicious IP—you can automate approval and clawbacks. There are no spreadsheets involved, and there is no need to wait until the end of the month for reconciliation.

10. Scaleo makes the affiliate program easy to join and difficult to exploit.

Affiliates hate friction. If sign-up takes 3 days, they go promote your competitor. If you approve everybody, you get fraud. The way casinos solve this is by doing the following:

• instant sign-up with limited access (general promos, no high-CPA offers)
• KYC / compliance for full access
• automatic geo and brand-bidding rules
• transparent T&Cs in the dashboard

11. They actually talk to affiliates

This sounds basic, but the best-performing casino programs always have a human in the loop: affiliate manager / partner success / AM team. They look at the data and reach out:

• “your CR dropped in Brazil; change the landing.”
• “we added Pix and it’s converting better; update your page.”
• “we launched a sportsbook; cross-promote to your casino users.”
• cookieless, S2S-first tracking that works on mobile, in apps, and inside social browsers
• iGaming-aware features (multi-currency, CPA/RevShare/Hybrid, custom statuses, player filters, fraud controls)
• real-time reporting for affiliates, so they trust the program and scale it
• flexible payout logic tied to real casino events (KYC, FTD, wager, NGR)
• API integrations to push/pull player data from the casino platform

And it gives affiliates:

• a clean dashboard
• working links
• localized creatives
• sub-ID tracking that actually shows up
• fast and fair approval of conversions

That’s why the operators who win with affiliates don’t just “have a program.” They run it like performance marketing, enforce it like compliance, and scale it like a product—on top of software built for casinos.

If you run an iGaming brand and want affiliate marketing to be a real growth strategy—not just an experiment—that’s the model to follow.

The number of products sold via affiliate marketing is seemingly endless. From electronics to food supplements, from menswear to ladies’ lingerie, and yes, you guessed it, double glazing.

In simple terms, this type of sales technique works in three easy steps:

Promote, sell, and commission.

The affiliate will promote a company’s product or products and earn a cut of any sales generated by this third-party advertising. Of course, it’s not all that cut and dry. A lot of hard work and research would have to go into what products you promote and the affiliate schemes you sign up for. But a lot of money can be earned from this type of business by both the merchant and the affiliate.

This is why online casinos and other gambling-themed websites choose this way to attract new customers. You can find out more about the overall concept of affiliate casinos in our article here.

Casino Affiliates—You’ve Probably Encountered Them If You Gamble

Before we get into exactly why casinos use affiliates, I think it would be better to show an example of a casino affiliate—take Japan 1, for example. This is a site that promotes in the Asian market for large casinos such as Cherry Casino, Lucky Niki, and Vera & John.

But how do they do it?

It’s pretty simple… actually: Japan 101 provides a high-quality breakdown of the casinos and why you might want to consider using them. Take, for example, this guide for Cherry Casino. When a user comes to this page, Japan 101 breaks down everything you would want to know about Cherry Casino, from the casino’s history to the games that you can play and the bonuses that you get; they even cover the customer support offered by Cherry Casino.

So as a user, it answers all your questions that you might have before signing up for Cherry Casino, and it’s done from an unbiased point of view, and when you sign up for the casino, Japan 101 gets a kickback in return, which doesn’t cost the user anything.

But now let’s cover the nitty-gritty details on how and why this is an effective growth strategy for casinos.

They lose, you win…then again!

There are winners and there are losers at any online casino; it’s the nature of the game. When you attract new customers to an online casino through your affiliate link on your website or blog, some of these online gaming sites will pay you a percentage of everything their new customer loses, so in effect, they lose, and you win. This kind of arrangement is known as revenue share, and percentage commissions vary from site to site.

This arrangement sounds great on the surface, but affiliates need to read the small print carefully before signing up for this type of commission-based program. You need to be aware of something called ‘negative carryover.’ This term means when your sign-up wins, you lose, resulting in a negative balance in your affiliate account. Negative balances are sometimes wiped clean at the end of the month, but not all affiliate programs do this, so beware.

Cost Per Lead

This kind of commission is another way affiliates can make money from online casinos. Otherwise known as CPL, these one-time deal offers allow affiliates to earn money every time a new customer is directed to the gaming site via the third-party link, signs up, and makes a deposit. The affiliate’s end of the bargain ends here. There is no need for him to get the customer to spend any money while online at the casino.

Cost Per Acquisition

As it’s otherwise known, CPA involves affiliates attracting new customers to online casinos and making a deposit. On the surface, it sounds very similar to a CPL, but there is a difference. With this type of program, a new customer would have to deposit a minimum amount set by the casino before the affiliate receives any money. Not only this, but some online casinos may stipulate that new sign-ups must wager some or all of the deposit amount before any payment is made.

Simple, yet effective.

Online casinos benefit in several ways from using affiliates. None more so than having new customers directed to them with little effort on their part. It’s also kind of like having a deck of cards face down on the table and knowing what’s underneath before they’re turned face up.

By utilizing affiliates, a casino is basically paying for something that has already been achieved, rather than investing a lot of money into the business without knowing whether it will result in success or not.

It’s cards-on-the-table time. If you’re uncertain about the effectiveness of affiliate marketing for online casinos, ponder this for a moment.

By 202,6,, it is estimated that the online casino business will be worth over 90 billion US dollars. And there are many affiliate marketers out there making ridiculous amounts of money. Everyone’s a winner, it seems.