Who Pays for This Site
Updated:
The answer first
Casinos and sportsbooks do. gambling-websites.net costs nothing to read, and the money behind the research, writing and hosting comes mainly from referral fees: when somebody clicks through to an operator from our pages, opens an account and deposits, that operator may pay Gunwaleward Digital Media Limited. Some operators may also pay for a fixed spot on a page. Readers are never charged.
Below, the arrangements are spelled out in plain words. Keep them in mind while reading: the site is a business, and a business has reasons to lean one way.
Questions readers ask
Which links earn money?
Most buttons and logo links that point to a casino, a sportsbook or a sweepstakes brand. Each of them routes via a /go/ path on gambling-websites.net and carries rel="sponsored". Links to regulators, statutes, help lines, news outlets and Wikimedia Commons earn nothing. When in doubt, hover over the link: a /go/ address means it is commercial.
How are operators charged?
Three arrangements are usual in this trade. One flat fee for every referred player whose first deposit clears, called CPA. Revenue share, where we receive part of the operator's net income from the players we referred, month by month while their accounts stay open; plainly put, a slice of their losses. Or a hybrid of both. A fixed placement, where one is sold, is paid for a period whatever the sign-ups. Rates are negotiated privately, directly or via affiliate programmes, and stay unpublished.
Who decides what gets reviewed?
We do. Brands are picked because US readers search for them, because they turn up in complaints, or because they are new in a state market. Some reviewed brands pay us nothing at all, and their pages simply have no commercial button.
Does payment change the rankings?
It can decide which brands appear with a link at all, and a paid placement is a position that has been bought. It is not meant to change the facts inside a review: bonus terms, wagering, cashier limits and the weaknesses we found go down as they are. We will not claim that money has no pull on a commercial site; we try to keep that pull visible, so you can discount it.
Why should revenue share matter to me?
Because the more referred players lose, the more the publisher is paid. That incentive runs against your interests, and it is why this site prints wagering requirements and maximum-bet rules in full, flags offshore licences and keeps help services one click away.
Are paid partners safer?
No. Several commercial partners are offshore businesses that no US state has licensed. A deal with us says nothing about how a casino deals with withdrawals. Read the licensing part of limits of our advice before you deposit anywhere.
What do operators not get?
An operator gets no preview of a review, cannot get a weakness taken out and cannot rewrite the terms we quote. It receives no names or contact details of our readers. When a deal ends, the commercial link comes out and the review stays.
Do you accept free play or gifts?
Test deposits are made with the publisher's own money. Where an operator offers a press account, free chips or hospitality, the review says so, and the account is never used to judge withdrawals.
Why tell readers at all?
Because the Federal Trade Commission expects paid relationships to be disclosed clearly, and because a reader who knows that a link earns money can judge a recommendation better than one who does not. Keeping it quiet would make every review here worth less.
Does using a link cost me anything?
No. You get the same bonus, odds and prices if you go to the operator directly. To make sure nobody pays us for your sign-up, enter the casino's address by hand.
What does a click record?
We set two cookies of our own. mz_vid, carrying a random number, lasts twelve months; mz_src, naming the site that sent you, lasts 30 days. A /go/ click puts down a mozbiz_session plus XSRF-TOKEN as well; they lapse after roughly 20 hours and serve to count the click and protect the redirect. From then on the operator's own cookies, and those of its affiliate tracking platform, take over. The privacy policy covers the rest.
A referral, step by step
- You read a review and press the button that leads to the casino.
- The button sends your browser to a
/go/address on gambling-websites.net, which notes the click and forwards you, tagged with our partner code, to the operator. - You register and make a deposit.
- The operator's affiliate report attributes that account to the publisher.
- The operator pays a one-off fee, a monthly cut of revenue, or both, on the agreed terms.
Spotted an unmarked link?
If you find a paid link or box that carries no label, that is our mistake. Tell Gunwaleward Digital Media Limited at [email protected] (Imperial Ocean Plaza, Ocean Village, Gibraltar GX11 1AA) and name the page, and the label gets added.