Home › Guides › iGaming Affiliate Marketing › How Do iGaming Affiliate Programs Work?
By Ray Truelead, Head of Affiliates · Published 2026-08-19 · Updated 2026-08-19
Once you understand what an iGaming affiliate program is, the next question is mechanical: how does a click on your link actually turn into money in your account? Here is the full chain, step by step.
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When you register with an affiliate program, you receive one or more tracking links (sometimes called referral links or tagged with a sub-ID/affiliate ID). Every visitor who clicks that specific link is tagged for attribution before they land on the operator's site.
The operator's tracking platform logs the click and drops a cookie (or uses server-side/postback tracking) that ties the visitor to your affiliate ID for a defined attribution window — a period during which any registration from that visitor still counts as yours, even if they don't sign up immediately. We cover the technical detail in iGaming affiliate tracking.
The visitor creates an account. This is the first hard conversion event in the funnel and the first metric most dashboards report separately from clicks.
The registered player deposits real money and typically needs to meet a minimum qualifying amount. This is usually the event that actually triggers CPA commission, and it's the point at which a player starts generating revenue that RevShare can apply to.
From here, the player continues (or doesn't) to deposit, bet and play. Under RevShare or Hybrid deals, this ongoing activity is what keeps paying you every reporting period, for as long as the player stays active.
Your affiliate dashboard aggregates clicks, registrations, FTDs and earnings, usually updated daily or in real time. Once your balance passes the program's minimum payout threshold, you request (or automatically receive) payment on the program's schedule — weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, depending on the program.
Example: 1,000 clicks in a week → 80 registrations (an 8% click-to-registration rate) → 25 FTDs (a 31% registration-to-FTD rate). Under a hypothetical $90 CPA, that week alone would generate $2,250 once those 25 players are confirmed as qualifying. Under a hypothetical 45% RevShare with an average $40 net revenue per player that month, the same 25 players would generate roughly $450 that month — and again the next month if they stay active, which is the core trade-off between the two models explained in CPA vs RevShare vs Hybrid.
If they register within the program's attribution window, the registration is still credited to you. Outside that window, attribution is typically lost, which is why window length matters when comparing programs.
Not every visitor who clicks converts to a registration — some bounce, some are already customers, some register later through a different device that breaks tracking. This drop-off is normal and is exactly what conversion-rate KPIs measure.
Related: iGaming affiliate tracking explained · The KPIs to track · The DBBET Affiliate Program
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