TRAFFIC & STRATEGY
Affiliate market to become more black and white
Increasing compliance demands look set to divide the igaming affiliate space between those that can meet more stringent regulatory requirements and those that can ’ t , writes Jamie Walters of QiH Group
When the white paper on gambling reform was released last April , many were relieved it stopped short of recommending a licensing regime for GB affiliates , as had been called for by some . But the latest round of consultations related to the market ’ s gambling reform makes clear the affiliate world will certainly still be impacted by the changes being proposed .
The Gambling Commission consultation launched at the end of November 2023 includes proposals to ban or at least limit wagering requirements and end the practice of mixing product types within promotional offers . These changes will obviously switch things up in terms of the bonuses and other promotions that gambling companies , and therefore affiliates , are able to offer in the future .
But more generally , I believe these and the other proposals that are part of the wider gambling reform are likely to lead to a clearer division between black and white market affiliates .
Increasing scrutiny
Even before the white paper came out , the compliance demands on operators were increasing and this was causing them to be choosier about which affiliates they went into business with . In recent years , the trend has been for UK operators to reduce the sizes of their affiliate programmes so they have more control over what the partners they are ultimately responsible for are doing . A number of tier-one companies have effectively whittled their affiliates down to a preferred supplier list of low double digits , whereas they might once have worked with hundreds .
This is understandable because there are all sorts of KYC , advertising and safer gambling requirements these days . With compliance taking up such huge portions of operators ’ budgets , the last thing they want to do is get into business with an affiliate that causes them to fall foul of the regulators .
As the head of a company that ’ s been in the affiliate business for 10 years now , I ’ ve certainly noticed the affiliate onboarding process has become much more rigorous recently . In particular , we ’ ve seen operators become
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