Topic: [GUIDE] Online Gambling Affiliate - Make Money Promoting Online Gambling - page 2. (Read 1072 times)

Would you be interested in me continuing this thread/guide?

I am currently thinking about starting a new project and (assuming I will go for it), we could even do something like a Journal - how long will it take to build a XXX gambling affiliate site and how long until we start making money? This might even be more interesting than "just" educational posts?

Well, that thread "inspired" me to get back in the game and around 2.5 months after I posted I would get back to this, here we go: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/btcgosu-your-trusted-guide-to-the-best-bitcoin-casinos-5262141

Hey guys,

there are still so many topics and things left I want to share with you but since my time is very limited at the moment, I will stop updating this thread for the time being. I will get back to that in a month or two, hopefully.

Full disclosure: While creating this thread and writing about gambling affiliating, I realized I have to get back to this, so stay tuned and be prepared...

Wordpress is not a web hosting service but simply the very "best" CMS (definitely good enough for gambling affiliates) out there. I can't recommend going with Blogspot or the likes but you could do that of course - you could also hand code everything yourself but why would you do that?

What do you mean by "not too good at Wordpress"? - Just buy some cheap hosting at GoDaddy or so and your Wordpress website can be up and running within a few minutes (have everything installed with just a few clicks). You don't even need ftp programs nowadays.

OP means web hosting like WordPress. A lot of out there host service and VPS to build website, not only Wordpress, you can use another CMS (Content Management System), this means Blogspot you are mentioned not enough to build it all, let's try to rent cheaps hosting $2/month to begin/learning (with limited service).

It seems like this thread has opened up my insight and knowledge again about how someone can make money from gambling without risking money for gambling. Not only me, a beginner can also be recommended to do it if they want to get bitcoin without having to become a bounty hunter or other that has been widely recommended.

Yes, maybe so far I have often overlooked the opportunities around us to become an affiliate of gambling sites and now it is good for me to learn the basics of how I should start.

I read your post and it is really very useful.

Is only wordpress platform can be use to build a website for affiliate?

I am not too good at wordpress usually build a web using blogspost.

First Steps

Okay, I think it‘s time for a post about the first steps on your journey to becoming a gambling affiliate. I recently posted about how to create a website and I suggest you read that post if you are completely new to creating websites etc.

So, let‘s not waste any more time and get straight to it. 5 steps to go!

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1st Step – Choose a Niche for your affiliate business/website

As an upcoming affiliate, the very first step should be finding a good niche in the gambling market. By finding a niche you will have an easier time getting traffic and making money. Example: Competing for (generic/huge) terms such as „Online Casino“ will be way harder than „High roller Casino“. You need to find a niche that makes up just a small part of the gambling world.

If you target a niche and build a top notch quality website around it, you will receive more traffic to your website (comparably) and that traffic can be converted to real money players. Targeted traffic is way easier to convert even if the pure amount of traffic is less. Don‘t try to compete with the big gambling affiliates right away, the competition is extremely hard and making money will be tough.

Do your research, online gambling is so complex, you will surely find a part that is promising affiliate wise as well as of personal interest to you. Ideally you need to find a niche with relatively little competition and lots of search engine traffic. I will create a more detailed post on finding a gambling niche later and link it here.

2nd Step – The Domain Name

As easy as it may sound, choosing a domain name can be hard – it‘s the name of your site and it needs to be attractive as well as fitting your niche. Back in the day, internet marketers focused on getting their desired keywords into their domain name but to be honest, things have changed by now and this is no longer „essential“ - yeah, it won‘t hurt of course if you can come up with a domain name that not only sounds/reads nice but also contains your main keyword but with Google‘s recent updates, Branding has become more and more important.

I personally prefer domain names that are as short as possible as well as catchy – it‘s a dream come true obviously if you can find a domain name that additionally contains your keywords. Fact is, no matter if your domain contains your focus keywords or not, you can still rank for any term and I will create a more detailed post on the topic of how to choose a domain name and link it here at a later point.

3rd Step – Get a nice Webdesign

Well, even though I have created and run dozens of affiliate websites for many years, I have never been a (good) webdesigner at all and you know what? It doesn‘t matter at all, you don‘t need to be good at that to become a successful affiliate. Of course it won‘t hurt if you are good it but it‘s by no means essential.

Some new affiliates are making a big mistake by „wasting“ lots of time on trying to design their website on their own – in many cases in order to avoid additional costs – still, I highly recommend you don‘t do that. Your time is valuable and you should use it for productive stuff.

Many years ago, when I started out as an affiliate, there weren‘t as many options available as nowadays and I really tried to build a website from scratch all on my own. The site sucked big time and I wasted countless hours. I finally hired someone to create a great design for me, paid around 200 USD or so and it was one of the best decisions. Nowadays it‘s even easier – you have wordpress (CMS), which comes with thousands of great free themes and then there are several specific premium wordpress themes available, that specifically cater gambling affiliates – these look extremely nice and are optimized for affiliates. You know what? They don‘t cost a fortune and you can get such themes for around $50 or so… a steal really!

A post on webdesign/recommended wordpress themes for gambling affiliates will follow soon.

4th Step – Content is King, write lots of it

Cliché or not – Content is King and it‘s a fact and easily the most important aspect of any affiliate website. Even if you found the perfect niche, without good (and lots of) content, you won‘t ever be a successful affiliate. Just throwing up some lame content and affiliate links on your site won‘t do the trick nowadays – thanks god it won‘t! Instead, you really have to provide lots of top quality content. If you website features great content, your visitors will browse way longer through your site (google ranking factor nowadays), other webmasters as well as regular people will link back to your website and you will obviously rank for various keywords on Google → more entry points for traffic.

Some people really neglect how important quality content is – especially with gambling sites, where so many sites feature the same old stuff. You should never forget a website‘s real use case for each and every visitor: If you visit a website, you are looking for information and you as an affiliate need to make sure, that your visitors can find the exact information they are looking for and in a quality as good as possible.

My rule of thumb is that any affiliate should try to get a minimum of one article online each and every day – sounds harder than it is! Two articles of nice quality a day are even better and will help you rank better much faster. A high quality website is never „finished“ and you should keep adding new content to your website regularly even after reaching 100 pages – don‘t forget that as an affiliate, this is actually your job, it‘s the source of your income and the more traffic you get, the more money you will earn.

A post with tips on Content Creation will follow and linked here.

5th Step – Good, old Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is a huge field and every affiliate has to deal with it – after all, thousands of websites are competing with each other to get as much traffic from the search engines as possible. You will have a hard time succeeding if you don‘t care about SEO. There are some „rules“ and guidelines you need to follow, in order for your site to rank as good as possible in the search engines. The better your rankings are, the more traffic you will receive and the more money you will make.

Since SEO is such a big topic, I won‘t go into detail here. I will create a post on SEO Basics shortly and link it here. Don‘t be scared though, SEO is no rocket-science… it can be considered some sort of science indeed but anyone can follow the basics and this helps a lot on the way to becoming a successful affiliate.

How to create a website

You want to become a successful gambling affiliate, you need a website! If the whole online marketing thing is new to you, creating a website may seem like a very hard task but trust me - it´s not as difficult as you think and technically creating a nice website is much easier than you would think. Read this post and you will see it´s no rocket science at all!

I will focus on how you can easily set up a new website and everything that is needed to so and best of all: Not only is it going to be easier than you may think, it´s also not going to cost a fortune!

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Quick start guide on how to create a website in 4 steps:

1) Buy a domain

You need to get a domain - a domain name is the address where your website can be found online, for example efialtisweb.com. Prices for domains have been dropping and you can buy a domain for around $10 for a year - many times even way cheaper as domain name registrants are often offering promo deals. A common address to register a domain name is namecheap.com but there are many more out there. Please stay away from "free domains" - nobody will take your site seriously if you go with a free domain (with alternative address) instead of spending $10 for a year...

2) Buy web hosting

You don´t only need a domain name, which is your address, you also need some space online, where you can upload your website and this is called web hosting. Your domain name will be pointing to this space. Many people use GoDaddy for their web hosting but you could even get cheaper deals elsewhere. Again, I will name a few more options in a separate post. When buying web space, you shouldn´t only look at the lowest price - a lower price usually means worse support, more downtime and you don´t want that for your website!

3) Build your website

Well, before putting anything up on the Internet, you will of course have to build a website. Years ago, building websites used to be much harder than nowadays and people needed more programming/designing skills. Most affiliates bought designs or used free ones and edited/customized them via software such as Dreamweaver. Great news: Forget all of that! Thank´s god there is Wordpress nowadays! With Wordpress, you can get your site up and running in just a few minutes - literally! Wordpress is a CMS (Content Management System) that is very easy to use and I can highly recommend it. It´s not just "a" but "the" most popular CMS in the world, individuals as well as companies are using Wordpress and they are doing so for good reason! Wordpress is open-source, it´s free, it´s customizable, it supports many languages, it supports millions of themes and plugins. I will create a separate post on how to build a website using Wordpress.

4) Upload your website to your web space

After having bought a domain and hosting, you need to upload your files to your web space. This used to be harder back in the day because with Wordpress, you will now be able to automatically install it with just one click (for example when using GoDaddy for your hosting). Otherwise, you can use various ftp programs in order to upload files from your computer to your web space. FileZilla is a common option but there are many more. All you need to do is entering some hosting info and you will be able to transfer files directly to your web space.

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You see, building a website and get it up and running isn´t very hard - it´s pretty easy. This is just a quick guide of course covering only the basic steps. Anyone and I mean it, anyone can create a website, it´s as simple as following the 4 steps mentioned above. More detailed posts covering the specific steps will follow shortly (I hope rather sooner than later).

40% revenue share really isnt special - through "private deals", you can get even more than that. Examples: Bitcasino.io for example is paying up to 45% (standard), Sportsbet.io 35% (standard) - no, I am not affiliated with any of these - just mentioning them because they are two of the bigger crypto gambing brands.

I agree it´s quite a lot and that´s why people should go for Revenue Share! Its a great deal for gambling operators anyways, they still make good money and - absolutely correct - they are actually getting constant traffic and only pay for it when people actually generate revenue. Seriously, running a successful affiliate program is great stuff for any gambling brand - that´s until they get greedy and become shady... again, thats a different story.

True - when choosing between Revenue Share / CPA, it always make sense to take a closer look at the site you are going to promote. Are we talking about a huge brand with great reputation? Revenue Share all the way! Are we talking about a brand new site you cant really tell yet? Well, you really may consider the CPA deal. But then again - personally I would only recommend/promote highly trusted / high quality sites... To sum this up: Yes, your point absolutely makes sense.

Last but not least: Many new affiliates are worried about winning players when going for revenue share - but heres the good news - no reputable affiliate program will make you pay in case your revenue goes negative. A negative balance definitely happens, there can be big swings, especially with casino players. If one of your players hits a jackpot for example, you may have a long way to go before you get positive again - heres one more good news, usually you can talk with your affiliate manager and they may remove the player or find another solution.

With most programs, your balance will "just" be negative until your players lose enough. Some programs also offer no negative carryover: In that case, your balance will be reset to zero if you end up in the negatives.

Very interesting.

Looks like revenue share is indeed the way go, if you are in for the long run. I understand 40% being kind of standard/good and that looks a lot to me - would have guessed it to be way lower. But I assume gambling operators can still make a pretty good living with 60% and in the end they need new players frequently (from their aff).

What I was thinking when reading your post: Wouldn't the decision between Rev/CPA also depend on the gambling site itself ? Talking about bookmakers, there is quite a difference quality-wise. With some bookmakers you are more likely to play a lot (Revenue) and with others you will play only once in a while (CPA). Does that make sense ?

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What about winning players in revenue model ? No risk for affiliates ?

The different payment plans in the gambling affiliate industry

This is an important topic and definitely one that can be discussed for hours and hours - what´s the best payment plan? Is there a "best" payment plan? What would you go for? I will start right from the beginning by describing the common payment plans there are for gambling affiliates and also share my opinion when it comes to advantages/disadvantages. Please note that there are many more payment models available in other affiliate niches and in the end, anyone can of course negotiate custom deals, such as flat fee advertising.

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Common gambling affiliate payment plans: Revenue Share, CPA (Cost Per Aquisition)

Okay, you are given the choice between Revenue Share and CPA - which one should a new gambling affiliate choose?

Let me first explain what Revenue Share and CPA exactly mean and I will try to answer the question afterwards.

Revenue Share: Affiliates are paid a percentage of their referred players losses, lifetime. Your payment depends on how your referred players are doing and if they lose, you make money. A 40% revenue share deal means that the operator will share 40% of their revenue with you. (There are several slightly different revenue share models but I wont get into detail here, just keep that in mind and dont forget that there may be terms such as bonuses etc., that are also being deducted)

CPA: Affiliates are paid a lump sum for each new depositing player they refer to the gambling site. CPA deals usually come with a number of different requirements regarding deposit amount, minimum turnover etc. The gambling operators want to make sure that you dont refer players who make the minimum deposit of $10 and leave right away while you are being credited a high CPA - this is to prevent fraud and yes, lots of affiliate try to abuse of course...

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So, you decided to become an affiliate and promote a gambling site. In order to so, you will have to sign up for the respective operator´s affiliate program and sometimes, you will be able to choose between Revenue Share and CPA (Cost Per Aquisition) - even though CPA deals are harder to get nowadays and usually not "standard". Most operators restrict new affiliates to Revenue Share these days, some may also restrict affiliates to CPA and some may offer both options. Lets assume you will have the choice, which one should you go for and why?

I will start by talking about what a "good" gambling CPA deal may look like. Established gambling affiliates can easily negotiate CPA deals as high as $200 (or even way more than that) for every depositing player they refer to the site. Sounds too good to be true? Trust me, some gambling affiliates are getting even more than that and as crazy as this may sound, with a $200 CPA you would need to refer only 5 depositing players per month for a $1000 pay-cheque - that´s 4 digits! And now lets get back to reality - as a new affiliate, no gambling site will offer you such a high CPA deal. Gambling sites will evaluate the players you are referring and the CPA deal highly depends on that. Not all traffic is worth the same - assuming you are running a gambling affiliate site that ranks highly on Google for high-roller related terms, the players you will be sending should be worth much more than if you were to run a gambling affiliate site focusing on no deposit bonuses. A player that signs up on a gambling site through your links for a no deposit bonus, will likely gamble his free money and never come back - there are exceptions all the time of course, but in general, that´s how things are. So naturally, any gambling site will only grant you a "standard" CPA deal - if any - in the beginning. A standard rate is something like $50-$60 per player, if you are lucky, maybe $100. Still a nice pay, isnt it? I definitely recommend discussing your deal with your affiliate manager after a few weeks/months and if you are sending good traffic, they may give you a much better CPA deal.

Revenue Share vs CPA

Bla bla bla - so, what´s better, Revenue Share or CPA? You could say that CPA is the more attractive option, just send a few players per month and make hundreds of dollars just like that, right away. Yes, you will definitely have quicker (higher) returns when going for CPA, in the long run though, you will earn much (much much much much) more money with Revenue Share.

New affiliates often prefer CPA and its normal, they dont know their player´s value and they want the cash - as quickly as possible. You should never forget though - any CPA deal always favors the gambling operator - no exception! Yes, of course, not all of your referred players will lose hundreds/thousands of $$$$ and so what I just wrote might seem odd - still, this is how it is. Trust me, a few "real, bigger players" make up for it all. Plus, dont dare to believe any affiliate program in the world is going to pay you $100 CPAs forever if you only refer players that generate $10 for them - they will simply terminate the CPA deal and - provided you werent trying to scam them - switch you over to a revenue share deal. No casino will pay you $1000 in CPAs if the 10 players you referred only made them $100 - thats just not gonna happen. With CPA, you will always get a worse deal as an affiliate, I mean, never will you get paid more than your players are actually worth and most importantly - the big players you send - you will never get a fair pay for them. Imagine you refer a whale gambling thousands of $$$$ each day and having taken a $100, just because you wanted those 100 bucks as soon as possible...

Revenue share is the way to go if you are serious about your business and its a payment plan that´s actually based on a real "partnership" with the respective operator - you bring good traffic, the operator makes money, you make money - as simple as that.

Is it really so easy, Revenue Share for the win?!

Its of course not as easy as I made it look and there are several scenarios that need to be taken into consideration. Say the CPA is soooo high when comparing it to a low end revenue share deal, then it makes sense going for the CPA - 20% revenue share for example sucks and if they are offering a $150 CPA instead, then go for the CPA - I would... With a 20% revenue share deal, I will have a hard time with my referred players generating me $150. That´s one of the main scenarios where a CPA might be the better option.

Then it also depends on what you are really trying to achieve - do you really want to establish a serious affiliate business? Or are you desperate for quick cash in order to pay for the costs you have had building your website? Generally speaking though, one should always prefer the deal making as much money as possible - and that´s not CPA, but Revenue Share!

In one of my previous posts I have mentioned another disadvantage of revenue share - affiliate programs claim to pay you for the life of the players you refer. I have personally experienced programs shutting down, cutting big players and all that shit - it happens and it sucks big time. Not much you can do legally, so you are always at risk having invested lots of work, time, money, receiving nice income for a long time and then one day, you lose that income stream. That´s why it always makes sense to diversify and not completely depend on one program. That topic actually deserves a separate post.

So whats my conclusion?

Building a nice player base that gets you some good amount of money will take some time but thats about the only disadvantage if you are thinking long-term as an affiliate. Whenever and wherever possible, I would choose the revenue share deal over the CPA deal.

Oh, what about CPL?

Well, cost per lead is really uncommon these days and most operators wont pay you per lead anymore. They used to do in some cases back in the day. I have posted about that here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54225709

Of course you can - that´s why I have created this thread in the first place.

1. Are you asking for specific gambling operators or is this about the niche I would choose? If I were to build a new site, I would definitely target the crypto gambling space. It´s still in the beginning (compared with fiat gambling), most of the crypto gambling affiliate sites out there suck big time so you have an "easy" job when simply being honest and there is lots of money to be made.

2. I know a lot about SEO - I have/had to... and keyword research etc. is of course important - still, I never suggest writing articles simply for seo purposes - those so called "seo articles" are not for me - my readers should find value in my content, so I am only thinking about what´s important to the readers and what information they are looking for when searching for a gambling site. Regarding social media - I would definitely recommend adding social media channels and being active there - wouldn´t be my priority though. Nowadays, youtube/twitch etc. are also very popular and can help driving traffic but then again, I am also not that type of guy. At a later stage, I would probably hire people though to create video content for me.

can i ask just some questions please. just wanted to learn too.

1. if you are to once again planning to start an affiliate business, which gambling site are you looking to promote?

2. which platform to find clients as well, social media or just organic traffic from search by dong seo articles?

Hey,

very fair question I am happy to answer: In my case, there were several factors that combined made me go back to the other side. While I definitely made good money and loved the financial freedom and being my own boss, there are also some disadvantages that come with working "alone" as a full-time affiliate.

The main reasons that led to this:

- There were affiliate programs that retrospectively changed their terms, that stole players, that disappeared etc. With no "real" regulation, you are highly dependent and some program you may have been working with for years and where you have built a huge player base, may "kill" you when they decide to close their operation, not pay you for your player base etc. You can hardly do anything about that and it happens from time to time...
- I have been working crazy hours, day and night, no matter if weekend, holidays, whatever - thats the fate of being self-employed
- I have been working "alone" - yeah, I have had all those partners I have been chatting with each day and several freelancers I hired to support me but still, its completely different when compared to working in a company with all the colleagues - even when finding working space outside home, which I did, it wouldnt replace the chit chat with your colleagues.

I then decided I would be better off selling my websites and player bases to other affiliates, which I did, moved to another country and started a career in e-commerce. Today, I am still in e-commerce but also doing lots of freelancing stuff (and seriously considering starting an affiliate business once again).

Hope it answers your question.

OP, Very detailed and informative thread. I have read all of your posts, but this FAQ makes me wonder why?


If I may ask, why did you stop being a full-time affiliate earning 4 - 6 figures? Because, as you said, it's not an easy task and requires dedication and hard to become successful. Personally, if I'm successful in a field after much hardwork, I wouldn't just quit it until and unless I find a much better option.

Engaging in gambling affiliate program is really memorable and technical to do, as you really need to promote effectively a certain gambling platform. You just need to become honest, good, and have a high marketing skills in order for you to achieve your goal in your affiliate program. It is not easy at first but if you try to become used to it and understand how to promote a gambling casino effectively, then people will trust you.

It is not easy to earn trust but if you will work hard in a gambling affiliate program then you will achieve your objectives and fulfill your potential to become an effective marketer online. You have a lot of time to practice and try online in gambling affiliate so you will have some experience doing it so.


That's how you work on success, you should be always optimistic just like him, although sometimes we experience hard times sometimes but we also need to bounce back with a positive mindset. Everyone can do just like what he did, everyone can be successful and achieve their goal, no matter if you are talented or not, anyone can learn and be successful in their lives.

Hi,

I will also write a post on the first steps shortly - I have so many topics in mind that I can write about, keep ideas/questions coming. If you have read the posts so far, you should have a better idea by now as to what it takes. Thing will get more detailed soon. Believe me... anyone willing to work hard... can succeed! By the way: I am actually considering doing some sort of "live experiment" where I start a project and document its progress right from the beginning in a seperate thread here on bitcointalk - curious if people would be interested in something like that.

An idea that I'm dwelling on in the past month (which I still didn't do): create a Youtube channel that will provide free picks and then, along with it, provide some affiliate links here and there. I think, that will help you in a very good way especially if you provide picks that are winners or provide positive yield in the long run. It will be an uphill battle at first because you need to garner your audience first but time will help you with that. As long as you provide gambling-related contents (and don't forget the affiliate links) on a consistent basis, you'll have huge amount of subscribers in no time.

Again, just an idea. 

Interesting, some people including me will definitely ask, how to begin and what have we do next?. Like me, it has a big problem when trying to be an affiliate because I don't know how to market it and how to get a new user. maybe this is just a simple question, but this point which is to be the next determining of success, I think.

I read all your posts, you are optimistic, you have talented, which definitely everyone can't do like you did.