Casino Affiliate Programmes: A Guide for Would-Be Affiliates

This page explains how casino affiliate programmes work, for anyone thinking of joining one: what the advertising rules require of an affiliate, who is accountable for an affiliate's marketing, and how commission is calculated. It is not this site's disclosure of its own commercial arrangements, which is set out on the disclaimer page.

What a Casino Affiliate Programme Is

The Advertising Standards Authority defines the model it regulates: “Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing where an affiliate is rewarded by a business for each new customer attracted by their marketing efforts (typically measured using ‘clickthrough’s’ or sales), usually with a pre-agreed percentage of each sale as a commission.” It is explicit about what that makes the affiliate: “Affiliates are effectively acting as a secondary advertiser since they earn money in direct proportion to the interest they generate in a product.” A gambling affiliate is therefore an advertiser, not an observer, and the rules that bind an advertiser bind it.

Both the Operator and the Affiliate Are Accountable

The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising sets out the principle for gambling advertising — “The rules in this section are designed to ensure that marketing communications for gambling are socially responsible, with particular regard to the need to protect children, young persons and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited.” — and its scope reaches affiliates directly: “This includes marketing by third parties (for example, affiliate marketers) acting on an advertiser’s behalf.” The Code records how that connects to gambling licensing: “The Gambling Commission’s Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice make it a direct requirement on licensed operators to ensure their marketing communications comply with the UK Advertising Codes.” Where an operator is not licensed, the Code says what happens: “The ASA will refer marketing communications for unlicensed operators to the Gambling Commission.”

The Gambling Commission’s own guidance to licensees says the same thing from the licensing side: “The advertising of gambling products and services must be undertaken in a socially responsible manner and you must comply with the UK Advertising Codes issued by the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) and administered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).” Its licence conditions then make the operator answerable for its partners: “Licensees are responsible for the actions of third parties with whom they contract for the provision of any aspect of the licensee’s business related to the licensed activities.” Operators must contract on terms that “require the third party to conduct themselves in so far as they carry out activities on behalf of the licensee as if they were bound by the same licence conditions and subject to the same codes of practice as the licensee”, and must be able to “terminate the third party’s contract promptly if, in the licensee’s reasonable opinion, the third party is in breach of contract (including in particular terms included pursuant to this code provision) or has otherwise acted in a manner which is inconsistent with the licensing objectives, including for affiliates where they have breached a relevant advertising code of practice.” The Commission has applied this to affiliate sites in terms, telling licensees that “Licensees should therefore ensure the new LCCP provisions on free-to-play games are applied to gambling affiliates they employ.”

Responsibility does not transfer. The ASA states that “Both the business and the affiliate marketer are responsible under the Code, notwithstanding the fact that the ads may have been created solely by the affiliate without any input from the business themselves.”, and that “Advertisers should also bear in mind that allowing their affiliates to have free rein over the content of ads does not excuse them from the responsibility of ensuring that the advertising is compliant with the CAP Code.” An affiliate relationship is therefore a compliance exposure for the operator as much as a marketing channel, and the licence conditions above are what make it one.

Disclosure Is a Requirement, Not a Courtesy

In the United Kingdom the starting rule is identifiability: “Rule 2.1 of the CAP Code requires that marketing communications are obviously identifiable as such.” For a site built out of affiliate links the ASA is specific: “Where all the promotional offers presented include an affiliate link, the website as a whole should make clear the nature of the content and ensure that it does not misleadingly imply that the website is ‘independent’ or has merely collated the deals for no financial incentive.”, and “This will need to be obvious to anyone visiting the website, and marketers should not rely only on explanations in ‘About Us’, ‘FAQs’ or ‘Terms and Conditions’ pages.” Vague wording fails: “Similarly, a generic and ambiguous disclaimer which indicates that the author ‘may’ receive a commission is unlikely to be acceptable, particularly where the specific affiliate content has not been highlighted.” And the rest of the Code applies to the content as well: “It’s important to remember that, because affiliate marketing falls within the scope of the CAP Code, all the relevant rules will apply to the content and it therefore should not, amongst other things, mislead materially or cause serious or widespread offence.” The ASA notes of its own guidance that “Note: This advice is given by the CAP Executive about non-broadcast advertising.”

For readers in the United States the governing text is the Federal Trade Commission’s Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, at 16 CFR Part 255. The general duty is in § 255.5: “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement, and that connection is not reasonably expected by the audience, such connection must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously.” The Guides work the case of an affiliate-funded review site through twice. On a reviewer paid per click: “Because knowledge of this compensation could affect the weight or credibility site visitors give to the blogger’s reviews, the reviews should clearly and conspicuously disclose the compensation.” On a ranking site: “Regardless of whether the website makes express claims of objectivity or independence, such paid-for rankings are deceptive and the website operator is liable for the deception.” And on the lawful version of the same arrangement: “If, however, the review website does not take payments for higher rankings, but receives payments from some of the headphone manufacturers, such as for affiliate link referrals, it should clearly and conspicuously disclose that it receives such payments.” The line those three draw is the one that matters: payment may be received and must be disclosed, and payment must not buy a position.

What the Rules Permit and What They Require

Nothing in the rules above prohibits an affiliate from reviewing the operators it earns from. What they require is that the arrangement be disclosed clearly and conspicuously, that the site not present itself as independent when it is not, and that payment not determine a ranking. This site's disclosure of its own arrangements, and the affiliate relationship behind it, are set out on its disclaimer page rather than here.

Commission Rates and Earnings Are Not Published Figures

Commercial terms between an operator and an affiliate are set in private contracts. No regulator, register or company filing read for this page publishes a market rate for a cost-per-acquisition payment, a revenue-share percentage, a performance tier or an affiliate’s income, so no figure of any of those kinds is stated here. Nor is affiliate work presented as an income: whether a given programme pays anything depends on terms no reader of this page can see.

One thing about the money a revenue share is calculated on is worth stating plainly. An operator’s margin does not come from an individual player losing; it comes from a built-in advantage applied across all play, which the Gambling Commission describes in its consumer guidance on gaming machines as follows: “This is called the house edge, and it gives a measure of the percentage that a casino would expect to keep, on average, from each hand or spin, given normal patterns of play.” That guidance is about gaming machines, and the figure is a property of an individual game rather than of any operator or supplier. A player’s decisions can reduce a house edge; no decision eliminates it.

How an Affiliate Is Paid

Affiliate commission is calculated on one of two bases, cost per acquisition or revenue share, and some programmes combine the two.

Cost per acquisition. CPA stands for cost per acquisition, or cost per action. Once a referred customer signs up and completes whatever action the programme has specified, the affiliate is paid. A CPA payment is a one-off fee rather than a continuing one.

Revenue share. Revenue share is the other common basis. An affiliate on revenue share receives a percentage of the revenue the operator earns from each player the affiliate sends, usually for the life of that player rather than once. The percentage itself is set in the contract between the two parties and is not a published figure.

Hybrid. Some operators offer a hybrid deal, combining a cost-per-acquisition payment with a revenue share on the same referred player.