Affiliate Monitor – August 2019

Welcome to iGB’s new Affiliate Monitor, a quarterly companion to our popular Market Monitor.

With the main agents of the recent consolidation drive having followed the trail blazed by XLMedia to the public markets, visibility of metrics such as NDCs and the percentage of revenue gained via rev share deals has enabled a more detailed view of how the top end of the market is performing.

Generating a larger share of revenues from rev share as opposed to CPA clearly increases the ability of these businesses not only to plan but to grow revenues in a long-term sustainable manner, and the comparative analysis in Part 1 exposes clear differences between the leading listed players.

This Q1 review also falls within what feels like a defining period in the affiliate sector’s development, with stakeholders dipping their toes in the US market where the sports betting expansion looms large across the wider igaming space.

The quarter also saw the transition from dot.com to dot.country regulation in Sweden, a highly material market for several of these businesses.

While understandably bullish in the face of a bumpy transition into a heavily restricted bonusing environment, author Scott Longley is not convinced by the affiliates’ arguments that regulated markets such as these are “less risky” and “better structured for growth”, seeing these as more credible coming from the mouths of operators.

“It is hard to see why the bigger affiliates need to follow the regulated mantra of the operators other than as a sop to potentially nervous investors in Sweden, where most of the entities are listed”, he says.

The big listed players are of course only one part of the story. In addition to other big names being privately held – such as Oddschecker, the Racing Post and Cherry’s Fortune Lounge – substantial traffic and revenues are still driven by the long tail of affiliates working below the listed level.

For many of these, the benefits of working in regulated markets are still “somewhat oversold” (see Part 3).

We hope you enjoy this new report and find it useful. Should you have any suggestions or feedback please don’t hesitate to email me at [email protected]

Stephen Carter
Editorial director, iGaming Business

If you can't use the flash player below you can download the report here.