Headway Consulting founder Itsik Akiva discusses the wealth of opportunities the online gambling world has in store for the affiliate marketing industry.
The online gambling world has a wealth of opportunities, even for the affiliate marketing industry.
Itsik Akiva, founder of Headway Consulting, said he sees a lot of interesting breaks for affiliates, particularly those that have a lot of U.S. traffic.
“There are some state-by-state opportunities, like in New Jersey, Nevada, where affiliates will have to go through some regulatory applications, but they still can actually make some good money there and refer some nice traffic,” Akiva told CalvinAyre.com.
In the national level, Akiva said fantasy sports is going through an “amazing growth” spurt, while real money skill games can already be compared to poker in player value and payouts. But the affiliate marketing expert noted that there are some issues that need to be addressed.
“I think we’re lacking some ground rules from marketing in general, so a lot of the regulations is really addressing the gaming operation, not so much the marketing operation. A lot of it is done in a hindsight afterthought, so definitely, we need to address that more before we launch,” Akiva explained.
He said the industry needs to address the issue not only with the regulators, but also with the decision makers, noting that “the more clarity will also allow more operators to collaborate more both with the regulators and with the affiliates.”
The definition of affiliates can be puzzling to many operators in the United States. In essence, Akiva said an affiliate is a “very valuable distribution channel with a nice added value.”
“The definition of affiliates can be very, very vague for some people, and a lot of people think it’s like the Wild West really. I think that affiliates in a regulated environment, they maybe have less of an impact than what we’ve seen in Europe, but they do hold the potential of through their content mainly educate players, spread the word, it’s very valuable distribution channel with a nice added value other than just referring players so a lot of good PR can come off that, a lot of branding, so I definitely see a major role for them,” Akiva said.
