The biggest paradox of affiliate marketing in sports gambling: while advising "winning" bets, affiliates make money on players who lose money.

The key revenue of affiliate marketers arrives from the flat payment of CPA (cost-per-acquisition) and the revenue share model. The revenue share model works as follows: 1) affiliates direct players to betting providers; 2) players register, deposit money, and place bets. 3) if players lose money, a percentage of this money is shared with affiliates, who brought these players. Thus, it is in the financial interests of affiliates to make players lose money.

The industry of gambling grew rapidly between 2014 and 2018, as the marketing costs for gambling ads grew only in the UK from £960 million in 2014 to £1.5 billion in 2018. (GambleAware, 2018) A similar trend is visible in other countries. For example, marketing costs in Australia grew by over 250% in 2017.

Gambling advertisements are dangerous due to the coverage across different platforms directly integrated with sports stakeholders, as well as the narrative of these ads that prioritizes self-control over the discussion on sports gambling risks. (Lopez-Gonzalez, Estévez, & Griffiths, 2017)

Affiliates are financially rewarded for directing their websites' visitors to sports gambling websites. As such, affiliate marketers do not always aim at providing an honest comparison of sports gambling products, instead, aiming to promote the website that pays the highest commission.

Affiliate marketing is an extremely high-growing marketing cost in the gambling industry. GambleAware (2018), measured affiliate marketing to count for 1/5 of the marketing budget of the UK's gambling industry.

Social media is used as one of the key channels for affiliate marketing.

There are two main types of affiliates' social media pages: 1) communities of bettors; 2) tipsters who advise betting options; Either way, posts in such social media channels often directly link to the websites of gambling providers, who pay commissions for players' acquisition and retention.

From the legal perspective, affiliate marketing is positioned on thin ice, as marketing communication must always define the commercial intent, which could clearly damage affiliates' brand image.

The regulation for affiliate marketing is very different between countries. While Greek legislation requires affiliates to register with Gambling Commission and then act as independent entities, the UK legislation places the responsibility of advertisement through affiliate channels on gambling operators (betting companies).

The goal of the legislation is to prevent gamblers from being misled to think that an affiliate account aims at helping them to win against the bookmaker.

Certain move towards responsible gambling is visible in the UK, where 3 leading affiliates formed RAiG (Responsible Affiliates in Gambling) organization.