Focused to win: staying niche in an age of scale

US, LatAm, sweepstakes, prediction markets… The iGaming industry is hooked on scale. It makes sense. With regulatory headwinds hitting multiple markets and competition stiffening across verticals, it’s easy to believe growth and stability can only come from more.

But the question stands. While diversification appears to be the safer play on paper, what happens when everyone’s after the same pie? Casting a wide net might bring more revenue sources, but it can also thin the catch. The affiliates who stand out in the long run aren’t the ones sprinting from one trend to the next but those defining an edge for their business. We speak to three niche affiliates at different stages about why they take focus as their moat and the ups and downs of staying small.

What is a niche

For affiliates, niche can mean many things, but at its core, it’s about finding a small pond and catering to a specific player segment. For this year’s iGBA Awards double winner OLBG, that answer lies in the unique sports culture of the UK and Ireland. The venture began in 2002 when founder Anthony Portno was laid off and decided to learn coding. A staunch fan of horse betting, football and NFL, he built the site to help users navigate the emerging world of online betting.

Now 23 years on, the affiliate has expanded into casino reviews and runs numerous campaigns, such as its tipster contest, but it has always remained firmly rooted in the region, with global expansion off the table. According to OLBG CEO Richard Moffat (above), the brand’s key differentiator is its deep expertise in the local market, built by a “team of UK sports bettors who speak to other UK sports bettors on a daily basis”.

“Rather than diluting our strength by spreading ourselves thin across multiple markets, we’ve chosen to double down and continually strengthen what we know best,” Moffat explains. “This focus has allowed us to build authority, trust and long-term loyalty in one of the most competitive affiliate environments in the world.”

The same principle plays out in other forms of focus. For Neil Walker, creator of Live Casino Comparer, the niche wasn’t geography but game type. Believing that genuine passion and self-motivation are cornerstones of a business, Walker discovered the then-new live dealer niche 12 years ago after a suggestion from an affiliate friend. Seeing it as a bridge between iGaming and his land-based blackjack experiences, he jumped in headfirst.

By going deep instead of wide, Walker carved out a space few others occupied. “I found traffic by going deep into my niche, traffic that lots of people hadn’t found because the volumes were small,” he says. “Experienced players looking for something specific weren’t huge in number, but they were valuable.”

For Road Lexx (above), founder of Bitcasinosrank.com, the niche was payment, specifically crypto betting. While working as a business development manager at SlotCatalog, Lexx started the site to “create something independent and long-term, instead of working only for someone else’s vision”. With limited resources, he bet on a narrower niche rather than trying to be a jack of all trades.

What began as a hobby became a high-growth corner. “At that time, I honestly didn’t expect crypto gambling to experience the kind of boom it has today,” he admits. “Creating the website was more of a hobby, and I didn’t really think about the business side of things.” When the site began generating stable income, Lexx quit his job and has focused on the personal project ever since.

Pros: resource allocation and authority

Perhaps staying niche in a market isn’t contradictory to diversification, as going deep also requires pushing boundaries and broadening the product range. Among OLBG’s proudest campaigns are its sponsorships with Harry Derham Racing and Dorking Wanderers FC. But as Moffat points out, the team wouldn’t be able to commit to the investment if it had been “chasing growth in Brazil”. Focusing on the UK and Ireland, he says, enables the team to launch initiatives that “add layer upon layer of brand strength, trust and authority”.

Depth can also bring unintentional SEO benefits. Having no keyword tools at the start, Walker says he didn’t build Live Casino Comparer as an “SEO affiliate” but simply leveraged his expertise as a veteran player. Over time, he not only accumulated a loyal player base who returned for his insights but also carved out his own space in the search landscape. Lexx agrees, adding that by concentrating on a niche area, smaller affiliates could “sometimes rank better than well-known giants” for specific queries.

“You find traffic that others aren’t targeting and can rank more easily for what the industry calls long-tail word searches,” Walker (below) says. “A lot of my traffic came from those, and it was valuable because it attracted experienced players who knew what they wanted. Once they found the site, many returned for more information.”

Cons: one-man job, regulatory risks and rising competition

The price of focus, like running any small business, can be burnout. In the early days, Walker worked 12-hour days creating content and learning everything from video editing to coding and social media. It was only a few years in that he managed to cut down to four days a week.

Earning partners’ trust was another challenge. Walker’s proudest content is his behind-the-scenes reporting from casino studios, but that only came after years of persistence at iGaming conferences. “At first, the doors were closed, but over two or three years, people began to recognise me. I’ve maintained good relationships with many major operators and still enjoy speaking with them and giving feedback. That helped me grow the site,” he recalls.

Both Moffat and Lexx acknowledge the policy risks tied to a single-market focus. A stable business as OLBG is, Moffat says he still expects turbulence from Google updates and the UK’s shifting gambling regulations. For Lexx, the challenge lies in cryptocurrencies’ uncertain future as global regulators tighten their grip on the market. He notes that competition has also intensified, with parasite SEO affecting visibility and generalist sites adding crypto sections.

Lexx isn’t against branching out and says he has started working on a Tanzania-facing affiliate site, but his main focus remains Bitcasinosrank. To stand out, he’s shifting the brand away from being “a classic crypto casino review site” toward “a service that provides ongoing value to players”.

“At the moment, we’re developing a lot of new functionality for our website that’s aimed at deeper interaction with users. We also plan to introduce tools that will help resolve player complaints and allow users to make more informed choices based on feedback from other players,” Lexx adds.

To M&A or not

For small affiliate owners, M&A can offer a range of benefits, including strategic growth, market expansion and, in some cases, a profitable exit. This April, Walker sold his site to the Warsaw-headquartered affiliate Already Media. For him, age was the main factor behind the decision, having missed his original milestone of selling the business at 60. Over the years, he had exploratory talks with “a handful of” iGaming companies, but nothing came of them. When the affiliate group reached out, he seized the opportunity and went ahead.

Still, Walker cautions against signing deals blindly. Beyond money, he says the two parties must share “the same ethos”. Affiliates shouldn’t build sites purely to sell, either, as it risks undermining authenticity. “I wanted someone honest and straightforward, who would do a quick deal. I didn’t want anything protracted, no complicated earn-outs. I wanted to agree on a price, get paid, and then help with the migration of assets and brand,” Walker explains.

Since the acquisition, Live Casino Comparer has had a redesign with the help of Already Media’s team. Believing the brand is moving in a direction he “could never have achieved alone”, Walker says he is “excited to be part of the journey without bearing the risk”.

For OLBG and Bitcasinosrank, M&A isn’t on their roadmaps yet. Moffat says the brand’s focus is “keeping the team and the leadership in place”, and he doesn’t see that changing any time soon. “I haven’t seen many examples where M&A works well in the long run for the brand or its people unless those who have built the business and are passionate about it stay in place,” he says. “Remaining independent allows us to keep building on the culture and expertise we’ve developed.”

Now, gradually stepping back from the space, Walker’s advice for fellow niche affiliates is to “think about the audience they’re trying to reach and go where they are”. While AI search may seem threatening, he believes it’s only good at scraping content and reporting it back, still missing the nuance and personal touch that real gameplay experience brings to reviews. Looking ahead, he points to crash games as a promising new niche, one that appeals to younger players and thrives on platforms like TikTok.

Staying focused or scaling up is never a simple choice, and in the end, it comes down to each affiliate’s own circumstances and the market pressures they face. Yet what matters most, for all affiliates and especially for niche ones, is genuine passion – the kind that drives them to go deep enough, stay long enough and keep defining what’s possible.