How Betting Affiliate Sites Make Money, and How to Read a 'Best Sites' List

Why we are writing this

We publish reviews and comparisons, so this is a page about our own industry and to some extent about us. It is worth writing anyway, because readers arriving at a rankings table are rarely told how the table was produced, and the mechanics are not obvious from the outside.

The three deal structures

Revenue share

The affiliate receives a percentage — commonly 25% to 50% — of the net revenue an operator makes from referred users. Net revenue is, in practice, what those users lose.

The incentive is exact and worth stating without euphemism: the affiliate is paid more when referred readers lose more. A reader who deposits once and stops is worth little. A reader who stakes heavily for years is worth a great deal. Every editorial decision on a revenue-share site is made under that gradient.

CPA (cost per acquisition)

A flat fee — often ₹2,000 to ₹10,000 — per referred user who registers and deposits above a threshold. The affiliate is paid once and does not participate in later losses.

CPA is less badly aligned than revenue share, since the incentive stops at the deposit. It still rewards conversion over accuracy: the payment depends on the reader signing up, not on the recommendation being sound.

Hybrid

A smaller CPA plus ongoing revenue share. Common for larger affiliates, and it combines both incentives.

Negative carryover

The clause outsiders find hardest to believe. Under many revenue-share agreements, if referred users are collectively up in a month, that negative balance carries forward and is deducted from future commission.

The affiliate is therefore financially penalised when referred readers win. There is no reading of that arrangement under which the affiliate's interests and the reader's point the same way.

How this shows up in the content

What you see	What often produced it
Ranking order in a "best sites" table	Commission rate, not assessment
Ratings clustered at 4.5–5 out of 5	No operator pays to be rated poorly
"Editor's choice" badge	Frequently the highest-paying partner
Prominent bonus figures	Bonuses convert; wagering terms are in small print
Criticism confined to minor points	Mild negatives read as credible without deterring signups
Absence of any unrecommended platform	Non-partners are usually omitted rather than criticised

The last row is the most useful test. A genuine assessment produces things you would advise against. A list where every entry is recommended is a rate card with prose attached.

What the 2025 Act changed

Section 6 of the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 prohibits any advertisement that directly or indirectly promotes or induces a person to play an online money game, and section 9(2) attaches up to two years' imprisonment or a fine up to ₹50 lakh.

That applies to affiliate content aimed at Indian users, not only to operator advertising. Sites that continued running conversion-focused rankings after 1 May 2026 are running that exposure, whatever the disclaimer at the foot of the page says. We cover what the advertising ban means for publishers in detail.

How to read a betting site review

1. Find the disclosure. If how the site earns is not stated plainly, that is the finding.
2. Look for a named author with a traceable profile. Anonymous rankings answer to nobody.
3. Check for a methodology. What was tested, over what period, against what criteria.
4. Look for negatives with consequences. Not "the interface is dated" — an actual recommendation against.
5. Check the dates. Undated reviews of a market transformed by legislation in 2026 have not been maintained.
6. Notice what is absent. A list with no unfavourable entries is a list of partners.

Our own position

We publish how we make money, an editorial policy and a fact-checking policy, and every article carries a named author with a profile page. We do not sell betting IDs and we do not link to operators.

Apply the tests above to us as readily as to anyone else. A page explaining how to evaluate publishers is worth very little if it exempts the publisher writing it.