With regulations tightening, affiliate–operator dynamics shifting and competition in SEO and paid media stiffening, listed companies are feeling the squeeze. We speak to two veteran iGaming consultants and a product owner about the pressures affiliates face today, the leadership skills in demand and how they can maximise their value chains to get back on track.
Since the pandemic, Gentoo Media (formerly GiG) has followed an impressive path of revenue growth. From €15.4m in Q1 2021 to €19.1m in Q1 2022 and then to €36.2m in Q1 2024, the industry watched in awe as the deft juggler kept catching successes, announcing one record quarter after another. Though many might also quietly wonder: would this seemingly unstoppable streak ever end?
Q4 2024 marked the 16th consecutive growth quarter for the affiliate. In its annual report letter, CEO Jonas Warrer and Chairman Mikael Harstad wrote in unfaltering confidence, calling 2024 a “transformational year” and saying the group was “poised to achieve even greater heights in 2025 and beyond”.
Yet so far, 2025 has proved frustrating for the business, with an 11% year-on-year revenue decline in Q1 ending its growth streak, which was followed by broad layoffs and exit from low-margin markets. In Q2, Warrer admitted revenue was “not where we want it to be”, though he held out hope for a return to profit in H2.
It's a challenging time for both gaming affiliation and the online marketing world as a whole
Ory Weihs, XLMedia founder
It’s not just Gentoo that has suffered the slump. Since 2024, many listed affiliates have announced revenue dips and layoffs, with Raketech handing over editorial control to “strategic partners” and Catena Media aborting its AI content generation joint venture. This year has also seen the official liquidation of XLMedia, the former owner of household brands including WhichBingo and Freebets.com. When asked about industry peers’ recent struggles in an iGBA interview, XLMedia founder and Affiliate Idol Winner Ory Weihs was all sympathetic.
“(The situation is) unfortunate but understandable,” Weihs said. “It's a challenging time for both gaming affiliation and the online marketing world as a whole.”
What’s in the pressure pot?
So, looking back over the past year and a half, what has been roiling the waters and creating the difficult market dynamics? According to Pierric Blanchet, founder of iGaming consulting firm The Gambling Cockpit and ex-board member at North Star Network, the primary challenge is regulatory changes, most notably in Brazil, as the country launched its legal betting market in early 2025.
“Most affiliates had to reacquire their player base in Brazil. They had made millions of FTDs until 2025, and then they had to rebuild everything, with more actors and more affiliates competing in the same market,” he explains.
Most affiliates had to reacquire their player base in Brazil. They had made millions of FTDs until 2025, and then they had to rebuild everything
Pierric Blanchet, The Gambling Cockpit founder
The same pressure, as Blanchet notes, is mounting in other markets too. India, for instance, has passed bills banning all forms of real-money gaming, from poker to fantasy sports. In the US, the slowdown in sports betting legalisation and bans on sweepstakes signal that the gold rush is ending, leaving affiliates who plunged in a few years ago under strain.
Paul Leyland (below), consultant at the global sports and leisure strategic advisory firm Regulus Partners, adds that the regulatory changes are creating “issues with addressable growth versus black market growth”. In the now-shrunk legal markets, operators “tend to have a lot more direct advertising”, reducing affiliates’ role in brand building.
“In regulated markets, you tend to have local heroes that can’t really exist in non-regulated markets, and those local heroes don’t tend to be dependent on affiliates. So there’s a change in the operator dynamic which squeezes affiliates,” Leyland explains.
“In regulated markets, you tend to have local heroes that don’t tend to be dependent on affiliates. So there’s a change in the operator dynamic which squeezes affiliates,” Leyland explains.
In regulated markets, you tend to have local heroes that don’t tend to be dependent on affiliates
Paul Leyland, gambling consultant
The second challenge, Blanchet says, is affiliates’ overdependence on certain revenue streams, particularly SEO, which has been disrupted by Google updates and AI search. At the same time, competition in paid media has intensified as affiliates look for alternatives, driving up the cost of keyword rankings. With operators frequently pulling out of markets, as seen with Stake.com’s white-label operation exiting the UK and Betway’s departure from Brazil, affiliates relying on only a few partners are also at risk of revenue loss.
All of the above, combined with the lasting impact of past strategic decisions such as focusing too heavily on a single region, failing to fully monetise assets and operating without formal contracts with operators, are shaping the new revenue and FTD famine affiliates face today.
“Take Catena, for example, with all due respect for the critical work they’ve done, they put all their eggs in one basket when they decided to sell their European assets and focus on the US. SEO changed, competitors moved into the US too, and fewer market openings made it a bad strategic decision,” Blanchet explains.
Affiliates who are just trying to generate traffic by linking as many iGaming companies as possible and saying who’s got what bonus, that model is being squeezed
Paul Leyland, gambling consultant
Regain the footing
Following the underwhelming results, listed affiliates have announced plans to get back on track. H1 2025 was a period of key strategic overhauls, with Better Collective announcing “the New BC” era, transitioning from a geo-based structure to three global business units consisting of publishing, paid media and esports, with each managed by new leaders. Catena Media continued its cost optimisation measures, reducing headcount by a further 25% after its sweeping layoff in October 2024. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that alongside job cuts, Gentoo also carried out a full-scale cabinet reshuffle, replacing its CTO, CSO and CFO, and making senior appointments across sales, legal and tech.
Driving these drastic moves is a shift in mindset. As Leyland suggests, affiliates need to return to the core of their business by focusing on content quality rather than traffic alone. Moving forward, only those who “genuinely engage with customers” will generate sustainable revenue.
“Brands like LiveScore, Racing Post or Oddschecker have a clear consumer role. People go to that content to find gambling-related information and then move on to other things. But for affiliates who are just trying to generate traffic by linking as many iGaming companies as possible and saying who’s got what bonus, that model is being squeezed,” Leyland explains.
Today’s leadership is more driven around localisation and high quality content, less around knowing people in the back rooms of trade shows
Paul Leyland, gambling consultant
As a result, Leyland notes that the most sought-after affiliate leadership profiles are changing, moving towards market localisation and high-quality content, rather than “knowing people in the back rooms of trade shows”. Catena’s removal of an entire management layer in its Q2 update shows how listed affiliates are beginning to recognise the clunky nature of traditional corporate structures. According to Leyland, this could give smaller affiliates a competitive edge, as they can dip into new markets faster and at relatively low cost.
Looking ahead, Blanchet places his bet on Gentoo Media and Better Collective as the players best positioned for recovery. He argues they have “the most diversified portfolios in terms of geography,” strong media niches such as the esports-focused HLTV and extensive business networks that make them resilient to upcoming industry changes. Moreover, both companies – notably Better Collective, with over €300m in bank credit facilities – have the cash to acquire growth and shore up existing portfolios should underperformance persist.
SaaS taking the lead
It’s not been entirely gloom and doom for listed affiliates. Since finalising the Odds Holdings acquisition, Gambling.com Group has been riding a growth streak, bouncing back from last year’s North America slowdown with a 30% rise in Q2 revenue. After an ownership shake-up and a flat 2024, Acroud has also seen a clear uptick, posting a 15% growth in the latest quarter.
Curiously, both companies point to their SaaS segment as a key performance driver. In Gambling.com Group’s Q2 report, CEO Charles Gillespie revealed that sports data services accounted for over 25% of income – “all of which is high-margin, high-visibility, recurring subscription revenue”. Acroud’s SaaS solutions, which include affiliate-facing B2B software and a network model, delivered 52% year-on-year growth in Q2 and made up 59% of total revenue.
While affiliate tracking will probably always play a role, my opinion is that revenue from licensing data and content is likely to provide a more reliable and stable long-term source of revenue
Ian Sims, Rightlander founder
Ian Sims, co-founder of affiliate compliance and intelligence platform Rightlander, observes that SaaS is becoming “an important model in the evolution of affiliates” by offering a “reliable and stable long-term source of revenue”. He links this trend to the rise of AI and to consumers’ growing scepticism towards traditional SERPs, as many now see that “it is worth paying for a subscription to a tool like ChatGPT rather than relying on clearly biased search engine content designed to sell products”.
He explains: “Subscription-based SaaS and data services may well benefit from this mindset shift in two ways: AI companies will have the money to pay for data and content, and consumers will consider subscriptions the best way to get what they want”.
Moreover, unique data could take affiliates beyond iGaming and into other niches. “For example, if you have data on every football match ever played, that could open doors to games companies, research institutes, investment funds and media companies and put you on a different pathway. Data will help you diversify,” Sims adds.
Smart diversification, prediction markets and more
Gambling.com Group certainly has an interesting taste in acquisitions. Aside from the Odds Holdings deal, the company also bought the events booking platform Spotlight.Vegas, extending its client base to include land-based operators. Blanchet calls it a “smart move” and compares it to Financial Times’ consulting branch FT Strategies, which offers advisory services for other media companies. The key for today’s diversification, Blanchet believes, is staying close to a company’s core strengths rather than chasing unrelated ventures.
As long as diversification builds on what a company already does well, I don’t see it as a risk
Pierric Blanchet, The Gambling Cockpit founder
“It isn’t about how far you go, but how you do it. To get the most out of a diversification, a company has to rely on its knowledge or expertise in the existing value chain,” Blanchet says. “As long as diversification builds on what a company already does well, I don’t see it as a risk.”
As for other diversification pathways, prediction markets have also been on listed affiliates’ radar for some time, seen as a potential substitute in states where sports betting remains illegal. In Q2 earnings calls, Better Collective’s CEO described the sector as “a very exciting development,” while Gillespie said Gambling.com Group has been “spending a lot of time” exploring it. In a LinkedIn post, Kalshi chief of staff Brandon Beckhardt revealed that the company is now looking for affiliate partnerships in its “hyper-scaling mode”.
With regulations tightening, Blanchet advises affiliates to watch the space closely in case the sector meets the same fate as sweepstakes. That said, prediction market providers still “have a strong need to increase their player base using every tool they can”, with affiliates leveraging their existing authority in sports betting to build up the new revenue stream.
“Additionally, predictions cover the daily entertainment habits of users, as they can launch predictions on anything from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cut to the return of Jesus and the results of the next SpaceX launch. That could lead to new assets in listed affiliates’ portfolios, or pave the way for smaller affiliates to enter the niche,” Blanchet adds.
Ultimately, Leyland says there is no “one-size-fits-all business model” for affiliates, and each must find solutions that suit their own circumstances. At the core, though, the focus remains on adding value through consumer products and localisation, rather than taking a “spray and pray attitude to traffic”.
Sitting at the crossroads of regulation, tech and SEO, being an affiliate is never easy, and the ups and downs are part of the journey. While this is a stressful time for many, with active efforts underway, the silver lining may be just around the corner.