ClickOut Media buys Gambling Insider for up to £14 million
The affiliate has acquired the B2B gambling publisher GamblingInsider.com in a £12-14 million deal, with the original owners relaunching its products under Global Gaming Insider.
Founded by Gary Roudette and Julian Perry in 2010, Gambling Insider was the main asset of Players Publishing, which also operates Gaming America and the Global Gaming Awards. Other assets owned by Players Publishing remain unaffected by the deal, as first reported by Gaming & Co.
This comes after ClickOut Media’s acquisition of Esports Insider and CasinoBeats from SBC Media for an undisclosed sum in summer 2024, both of which have since been converted into affiliate sites. The group recently drew criticism following search expert Timothy Malmros Genach’s multi-part investigations into its business and parasite SEO tactics, which include piggybacking on high-authority media brands such as Forbes, Technopedia and B2B outlets, then directing traffic to offshore-regulated casino and crypto platforms.
Beta launched on 16 October, Global Gaming Insider is set for a full launch in January 2026. However, its news coverage currently dates back only to 4 September, and the event calendar begins from October, suggesting that the price paid by ClickOut covers both the domain and all content produced by the publisher up to a certain date.
According to additional research by technical SEO specialist Kevin Dunne, the GamblingInsider.com domain dates back to 1998, while GlobalGamingInsider.com was registered in 2018. The former currently records around 36,900 monthly visits and 528,000 backlinks from 15,600 referring domains, while the latter’s traffic remains negligible, with only 67 backlinks from 64 referring domains.
Both sites were last updated within a week of each other in August 2025, aligning with the report on the acquisition. Dunne noted that migrating a domain with more than 25 years of history “is something SEOs almost never recommend”, as the two domains “sit at opposite ends of the maturity curve”, with the brand change and longer domain name creating further friction for users.
Announcing the brand relaunch, Perry wrote on Gambling Insider that the new identity would enable Players Publishing to “refresh, remain relevant and continue to be the leading information source for the global gaming industry”.
“The way news is delivered is changing – and so is the way people consume it. What we have created with Global Gaming Insider is truly modern and unique in our industry,” Perry added. “We have an array of exciting features and new products coming up which we will reveal in due course.”
Commenting on the news, Alex Kostin, owner of Gambler Media, said Gambling Insider’s transition is “a logical move” amid “a broader trend where established media titles are being restructured to serve affiliate goals”.
“It’s less about journalism and more about positioning – ranking for iGaming keywords, capturing leads and using the traffic commercially,” Kostin explained. “Everyone’s chasing the same visibility, just through different routes. Now in AI overviews and through answer engines like ChatGPT, old domains with good reputable links have more chances to be quoted.”
Simon Vincze, head of sustainable and safer gambling at CasinoGuru, remained sceptical about the acquisition’s sustainability: “It's a bit expensive for a bet on parasitic SEO scoring that high in Google search for years to come. I believe there is a solid content strategy for the new website; otherwise, it would be a risky gamble.”
Several other affiliates declined iGB Affiliate’s request for comment.