Sports-betting platforms pay publishers up to $500 for each gambler they refer, and it shows how legal wagering could shake up media

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Sports-betting platforms pay publishers up to $500 for each gambler they refer, and it shows how legal wagering could shake up media
Kansas guard Devon Dotson (1) reaches for a loose ball during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Milwaukee in Lawrence, Kan., Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Associated Press

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  • Sports-media companies like Barstool Sports and Bleacher Report are eyeing the US' growing base of legal sports bettors as a lucrative audience.
  • Delivering players to sports-betting platforms could become a meaningful new revenue stream for them.
  • Sports-betting operators will pay between $100 to $500 for each sports bettor that's delivered to their platforms through affiliate links, Charles Gillespie, CEO of Gambling.com Group, told Business Insider.
  • Click here for more BI Prime stories.

Sports-media companies like Barstool Sports and Bleacher Report are eyeing the US's growing base of legal sports bettors as a lucrative new audience.

Today, these digital-media platforms, and other media companies like ESPN and Turner Sports, make money from sports bettors mainly by selling advertising and sponsorships in content designed for them.

But affiliate fees (commissions) from delivering players to sports-betting platforms could also become a meaningful revenue stream.

Companies like Gambling.com Group, a European affiliate that publishes comparison sites that refer players to online-gambling services, link to sports-betting platforms on their websites and generate revenue when users click those links and start wagering.

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These types of companies, like Gambling.com Group and Catena Media, are among the handful of business categories that investors say are are already making money from the rise of legal sports betting in the US.

Sports-betting operators will pay between $100 to $500 for each sports bettor that's delivered to their platforms through affiliate links, Charles Gillespie, CEO of Gambling.com Group, told Business Insider.

Those fees are on a cost-per-action model, where operators pay a fixed fee for every customer that's delivered to them via an affiliate link, but only after the player takes an action like registering with the sportsbook, making a deposit, or making their first wager.

Generally speaking, sports bettors are more valuable than online-bingo players, which operators will pay affiliates about $50 per player for. But sports bettors are less valuable than other types of online-casino gamblers, like blackjack players, which operators will pay as much as $1,000 for.

Cost per action is one model for affiliate deals, Gillespie said. Publishers can also share in the net revenues generated over the lifetime of the customers they deliver, or use a hybrid model that includes a smaller initial fee for delivering the players and share of the net revenues those players generate.

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Read the full story on affiliate models for sports betting at Business Insider Prime: How much money media companies can make by referring gamblers to sports-betting platforms

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