It is often said that the only way to make money with gambling is to be the casino. Now, this isn’t necessarily the case with all casino games, but the saying does have a good deal of truth. For the longest time, the only way to make easy money with gambling was to own your own casino.
Times have changed, though. The internet has opened new ways for you to make money through gambling without owning your own casino. Most online casinos today have affiliate programs in which they will pay you a percentage of all the revenue that they earn off players that you send to those casinos. In this way, you can take a share in gambling revenue without actually being the casino.
The perfect example of this is GamblingForReal.com. Yep, I’m an online gambling affiliate. I get paid for sending players to online casinos. I know this might sound bad, but if you look around here a little, I think you’ll see that I actually do care about my visitors. I always try to give the best gambling advice and always make it a point to remind you to keep a close eye on your gambling habits.
How to be a Gambling Affiliate
The cool thing about the gambling affiliate industry is that anyone can give it a shot. It costs nothing to sign up at a casino affiliate program. All you have to do is fill out a couple forms, get your special affiliate links and start sending players to those online casinos. The hard part is building a popular website that actually sends players to your casinos.
The good news is that you can do it all for free. I started this website with a budget of $0 and have turned it into a profitable endeavor by writing hundreds of articles and continually improving the website. It’s now a profitable website and I do spend some money maintaining it, but I started the site with nothing. The point is, anyone can do it with enough hard work.
1. Pick Your Gambling Affiliate Programs
The first step in becoming a gambling affiliate is to find programs that you wish to promote. You need to be careful in this regard because not all affiliate programs are equal. You have to choose programs that meet two requirements:
- They treat players fairly
- They treat affiliates fairly
I hope that you want to choose affiliate programs that treat players fairly because you have a moral compass. There are a lot of shady operations out there that take advantage of unsuspecting gamblers.However, there are plenty of reputable programs that treat players well. You might as well do the right thing and stick with reputable casino affiliate programs.
Here are a few that I recommend (sub affiliate links included):
2. Sign Up and Get Your Links
After you have a few casino affiliate programs ready to go, it’s time to sign up for those programs and get your special referral links. Casino affiliate programs cost nothing to join. Just look for the “sign up” link and fill out the requested information. This will create an account in which you can track your progress, see your earnings and withdraw your money.
Next, you can get your links by logging into your affiliate account. These links are the key to making money at your affiliate program. Anyone who clicks on one of your links and visits an online casino is tracked to you. When (and if) your players deposit and lose money, you get paid a percentage of those losses. The average in the industry is around 35%.
It might sound bad to only make money when you visitors lose to the casino, but you have to remember that gambling is a form of entertainment. As long as you are honest with your readers and make it clear that the casino has an advantage in the long run, you should be able to operate with a clear conscience. I constantly preach about how the casino has an advantage and I still make plenty of money with this website.
3. Promote Your Links
This is the hard part of being an online gambling affiliate. You have to find a way to get your affiliate links in front of lots of eyes. My personal preference is to set up a website like this one and fill it with good content. If you work hard, write well and persist during the tough startup stages, you’ll eventually start making money.
The easiest way to get started is to buy web hosting from someone like BlueHost.com or GoDaddy.com. You can then log in to your web host and install WordPress with a few clicks of the mouse. Once you have WordPress up and running, you can start filling it with content.
Websites aren’t the only way to promote your affiliate links. Some people have had success with offline campaigns. This isn’t my specialty, but I’ve seen people set up casual poker leagues at local bars and connect with potential players in person. As long as you have your affiliate links, the sky is the limit.
I could write a thousand pages on building a website and promoting your casino programs, but I think I’ll set you free at this point. If you want me to follow up with more information, just let me know. I’d be happy to write a series on becoming a gambling or poker affiliate.