Why iGaming Affiliates Need To Invest In Better Casino Reviews

Most affiliate online casino and game reviews are terrible. There, I’ve said it. And, considering such reviews are at the heart of the iGaming affiliate business model, this is something of a problem. Luckily, I think I know why we’re in this situation, and have some ideas for affiliates looking to address it.

During my years working in the sector, I’ve written hundreds of reviews of online casinos, games, and providers, and I’ve come to realise several things. First and foremost, an obsession with SEO and the proliferation of cheap ‘writers’ is rendering most content impotent.

Now, I’m not detracting from the importance of SEO (search engine optimization) - far from it. SEO is fundamental to affiliate success in today’s saturated online world. After all, if people don’t find a review in the first place, it doesn’t matter how well it’s written, it’s going to be as useful as a chocolate kettle. Rather, the problem emerges when affiliates focus on SEO and nothing else.

Throwing everything at SEO but ignoring quality

I’ve seen first-hand how both large and small iGaming affiliate businesses will throw endless money and resources at SEO - often putting together highly capable teams that can successfully fight their way up the rankings. And, for sure, if you get enough visitors going to your pages, you’ll make some conversions. But, I’ve also seen how some of those same businesses badly neglect the quality of their reviews and other content from a human point of view. Even some of the leading affiliates will quite readily publish terrible content; badly written, error-laced, clunky, cringeworthy, boring, misleading, disingenuous - you name it, I’ve seen it.

It’s as if these affiliates think the sole purpose of the content is to get visitors on the page. That, as long as the text causes a visitor to end up there, the shiny bonus offers and top lists, stuffed with referral links will do the job. And, maybe, to an extent, they are right. To an extent. Yes, some people wouldn’t read a review, even if they find the page, and might still click through to a casino or sportsbook. However, this is an extremely inefficient view to take and is incredibly short-sighted.

Maybe, ten years ago, that view was more valid. Back then, there were far fewer sites, and the audience was, on the whole, less sophisticated. However, today, the landscape is very different. Competition is much fiercer, people are a lot more wary of clicking on ads and banners, and in a nutshell, people need to trust sites before they will take action.

So, today, affiliates need to offer people more. Content like reviews is still critical for site visibility, so SEO should be ‘baked-in’ to all material. But, that content also needs to be genuinely engaging, informative, and above all, build trust. That means content needs to be written by people who know what they are talking about and have a genuine talent for writing. Unfortunately, all the tone and style guides in the world won’t help affiliates who insist on hiring people who don’t have the necessary skills or talent.

And no, AI won’t solve this. Yes, AI is amazing, but it is trained on existing content, and as others have already noted, if the majority of existing content is crap, AI is in danger of exacerbating the situation, not improving it. Besides, as I’ve previously argued, AI can help writers be more efficient, but writers still need expertise and talent to ensure accurate and appropriate outputs.

Writers and the race to the bottom

But why do we find ourselves in this situation? I mean, surely, affiliates understand what I’ve just explained - it seems so self-evident, right? Well, I suspect it's a combination of things. Primarily, at the same time as iGaming has boomed, so has digital offshoring and freelancing. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that per se - heck, I’m a freelancer living abroad - but it has led to a ‘race to the bottom’ in terms of price and quality. Of course, this phenomenon isn’t unique to the iGaming, or even wider affiliate marketing, sectors, but it is particularly noticeable there.

Furthermore, there are the harder-to-notice peculiarities of the iGaming industry in terms of who it attracts - something I’ve discussed at length in a previous post. Basically, this boils down to the fact that, as an industry, online gambling tends to attract analytical and statistical people rather than creatives. There’s also the reality that the industry grew from, and still to an extent exists ‘in the shadows’ - meaning bright-eyed new talent isn’t exactly encouraged to consider it as a career path.

The result is that too many in the affiliate industry simply don’t care (or even realise that they don’t care) about quality content. They hire the cheapest, they don’t practice adequate quality control, and they lack any coherent creative vision. Instead, they obsess about SEO and publish vast quantities of rubbish, hoping that scale will result in conversions. And, like I said, this does indeed work to an extent, for some. But, in reality, it is insanity.

Think about it. Your SEO efforts are working, and your casino review page is ranking - the visitors are flowing in, for now at least. Your content should entice people, and they should be reading it without even realising it. It should be easy, it should be informative and entertaining. By the time they’ve finished, they should intrinsically trust you and your recommendations. They should be reading more, exploring your site, and bookmarking it so they can come back. This isn’t going to happen if the content appears to have been written by Borat. It really is that simple.

I think that we sometimes forget to stand back and consider what our content looks like to normal people - those outside of the industry. Yes, as I said, they are avid gamblers who merely scan sites for the biggest bonuses, but to sustainably grow an iGaming business today, you need to convert new or casual players. And, the aim should be to provide genuinely valuable content to them, build a strong, long-term relationship, and be honest with them. In essence, it takes the same approach as someone building a YouTube or Twitter (sorry, ‘X’) channel.

People aren’t stupid, we need real honesty

This brings me to a final point - honesty. Yes, reviews need to be honest. I know, some of you will think I need to stop smoking the strong stuff, and others will insist they already create ‘honest’ reviews. But, come on, we all know that most online casino reviews are far from honest - in several ways.

Of course, the most glaring issue here is when reviews are just trying to sell a casino or sportsbook, no matter how terrible it actually is. This kind of approach is only going to end up in failure over the longer term. Potential customers can easily see through it, and it breeds resentment and undermines trust in your content.

But, there’s another trust issue, that is perhaps less appreciated (except to those, like myself, who actually write reviews). That is one that stems from price and time. It is when the reviewer doesn’t actually have time to really familiarise themselves with the product they are reviewing, whether it’s a casino or game, because what they are being paid simply doesn’t allow it.

For example, before I write a casino review, I go there and check it out. Now, with more stringent KYC requirements, this is becoming more and more time-consuming - indeed, it isn’t always possible to open an account and get ‘under the hood’ anymore (VPNs don’t help much if a casino requires biometrics and official address documentation). But even so, I do in-depth research. And, unsurprisingly, this can take a fair bit of time. So, to genuinely review a casino - and by this, I mean really test it, research it, and then write a quality review (with screenshots) - can easily take a whole workday.

Quite clearly, a review of this calibre isn’t going to be cheap. But, what is ‘cheap’ in this situation? Is it getting a review from a random freelancer in India or Venezuela for €20? Or is cheap paying €200 for a well-crafted, genuine review from an industry expert? Well, perhaps it’s better to consider if a review is ‘good value’ rather than ‘cheap.’ €20 is certainly cheap to me sitting here in Europe, but how much is that review likely to earn your business? Will it convert? Maybe. But, will it convert like the €200 one? Very unlikely.

And, if you’re not confident that you’ll earn more than €200 from a full casino review, then I’d say you’re business has bigger problems anyway!

So, if you’re running an iGaming affiliate marketing business, and you’re trying to figure out how to stand out from the crowd and grow, maybe you’re overthinking things. Maybe, you should start thinking about content quality beyond merely an SEO perspective. Perhaps, you should remember that it's better business to get 100 visitors to a page and convert 10 of them than get 10,000 visitors and convert 100 of them.

Yes, being an iGaming writer I definitely have a vested interest in this matter, but in all honesty, I believe the best advice for iGaming affiliates as we approach 2024 is, to invest more time, effort and resources into quality content. Like I said, it’s actually pretty simple.