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earlier, but I’ m proud of what we have done.”
Bettor-centric for better
How much time does Murphy spend working on the site? Way too much, according to his wife. A self-proclaimed“ OCD workaholic” and“ perfectionist”, Murphy works 50 to 60 hours a week with the brand’ s co-founder Wes Burns. Run by a two-person team, BettingUSA might not be the affiliate site with the most eye-catching web design, but Murphy is confident that they“ have some of the best content in the space”. The site now covers everything from online casinos to daily fantasy and banking methods.
Although Murphy sees organic search as the site’ s biggest challenge, he’ s relieved BettingUSA has never suffered a major penalty from Google updates. Unlike many affiliates focused on link building or paid ads, Murphy puts content quality first, even if it means earning less.
“ Our main focus has always been content quality,” Murphy explains.“ We’ ve tried hiring freelancers, especially writers, but they rarely meet our quality standards. People paid by the word often don’ t invest in accuracy or clarity.”
Another focus for Murphy is tackling problematic gambling, something he views as one of the iGaming industry’ s biggest issues. BettingUSA once ran a“ 1 % initiative” in partnership with the NCPG, donating 1 % of its revenue to responsible gambling causes. Despite the team’ s efforts, the initiative struggled to gain traction among other affiliates and was eventually phased out.
“ I believe affiliates need to be leaders in this space. It’ s for the
I certainly wish I had gone‘ all in’ even earlier, but I’ m proud of what we have done
long-term health of the industry and for affiliates to keep having access to the market. We need to take compliance and responsible gambling seriously,” he says.
Operators or competitors?
In a previous iGB Affiliate interview, iGamingNuts CEO Adam Bielinski claimed US operators were becoming affiliates’ competitors, which is why his brand was not entering the country.
Murphy says he agrees with Bielinski to a point. Compared to the 2010s when he had just started, much has changed in the US iGaming affiliate space. Once a market where“ any affiliate with a dream” could enter, Murphy is frustrated that operators are“ gatekeeping” the industry and even resist working with smaller affiliates. Communication also appears to be an issue, and Murphy says he has wasted a good chunk of his time dealing with operators’“ red tape” rather than partnering with each other for mutual growth.
“ Over the last couple of years, there’ s been this trend in the US toward lowering CPA amounts too, often quite disproportionately,” he adds.“ For example, you might go from having a $ 300-500 CPA in sports betting to an operator in a high-tax market like New York, slashing to as low as $ 40 – that’ s extremely low.”
Murphy’ s best suggestion for small affiliates is to link up with a network for access to deals and access to a central payment hub.
“ It can be very difficult to connect with an operator and secure a deal these days when just starting out,” he explains.“ Working with an affiliate network helps you avoid the stress of quotas and provides
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