I've saw the effectiveness of those influential people. Casino are giving them their own referral codes along with a payment to promote the certain said casino. I just wowed at the reactions of their supporters and the traffic it gives to the community, It can possibly reached 5-6 digit number of people because of how influential those people are and adding to that, they are doing cash giveaways but the only one who will be qualified for joining is for those people who deposited and played on the casino they are promoting. It is very effective for an influencers and a good strategy for a starting casino but the imagine of influencer will be tarnished if somehow people speak out about promoting the casino and giving out referrals.
An influencer somehow has many people who are his followers and they will always go where the influencer goes, but to hire an influencer you need a lot of money, some casinos do not have that money, they have to do other types of advertising, such as contests , promotions, there are casinos that are choosing to promote soccer teams and that when the matches are there, their advertising can be seen everywhere, that is a good way to advertise, but an influencer is a lot of money.
You are absolutely correct, but then, I think influencers charge based on how many followers they have, a small casino with a minimal marketing budget can still find an influencer that is also still growing his or her audience/followers, I believe such an influencer would require so much money to hire since he or she is also growing and need deals as promoting a casino to keep growing as well.
But in all, I personally think that going into Partnerships with big clubs and sports companies is always the best form of promotion, though this cost money though.