What Happens to Affiliate Revenue When America Regulates Gambling One State at a Time?

US gambling affiliate revenue is shaped by a fragmented market. Each state’s rules affect which operators affiliates can promote, which audiences they can reach, and how much compliance costs. These differences make national growth more complex while creating opportunities for publishers that understand the markets they serve.

Forget About Economies of Scale and Think Fragmentation

At first glance, the US gambling market might seem like a veritable treasure trove waiting to be opened. Whenever you look at any statistics about the global gambling market, the US is shown at the top of the list. However, that simplifies reality, because the US is not one market. With real-money gambling being regulated at the state level, gambling companies and affiliates are actually dealing with fifty individual markets. Market revenue across the country was $78.62 billion in 2025, but the share of that per state fluctuates wildly. 

Revoking the Blanket Ban Did Not Create a Federal Market

When PASPA was struck down as unconstitutional, it opened up the possibility for more states to legalize sports betting. However, it did not automatically make online casino and gambling legal. In fact, it could be said that it created an additional layer of bureaucracy. While PASPA was a federal ban, it did not stop people from gambling; it just prevented them from doing so legally. Many states have taken advantage of the opportunity to earn useful revenue (according to the American Gaming Association’s latest report, gambling generated $17.86 billion in tax revenue) from what people were already doing, while providing a safe space in a regulated market. 

However, this is not the case everywhere, and each state has its own rules and stipulations. While real money sports betting is now available in over half of the states, real-money iGaming is still only legal in a handful – New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Maine has recently legalized the activity but has not yet launched the market. In reality, while there is a lot to play for from an affiliate’s point of view, it is not straightforward.

Trying Times

Many organizations have had their fingers burned by the complexity of the US market (and we are not talking about small-time players. Several big, successful, established European online gambling markets went off in search of the treasure but withdrew from the market because of the lack of economies of scale and intense competition. 

Swedish Kindred Group withdrew Unibet in 2023, and German Tipico sold its US operations to MGM Resorts-owned Leo Vegas in 2024. Their departures were followed by Betway, Spin, and Betfred. The market has been dominated by homegrown operators like FanDuel and DraftKings, which were able to outspend on customer acquisition and pivot to new markets as required.

Fragmentation Means Extra Expense and Support

For operators and affiliates alike, maintaining state-level availability, geo-targeting, and compliance creates a high cost and operational burden. That is before you consider that an operator might be available in one state but not in another (due to licensing conditions), and advertising and promotion rules are also not standardized. If you treat each state as a separate market for real-money gambling, it will make more sense. Business plans and budgets, as well as operational and technical specs and software, need to account for this.

Where to Start

While it is a challenge, it is not an insurmountable barrier to building a great affiliate business. If you look at the homepage of a US online casino comparison site like Casino.org, you can see a practical example of the content and data infrastructure needed to serve users looking for the best online casino in a market fragmented by individual state regulations. Rather than hone in on each state, they start with a holistic approach.

While real-money gambling is regulated at the state level, there are other forms of gambling-adjacent opportunities that are not! At first glance, affiliates might not think that there is much commercial gain to be had from link building with social and sweepstakes casinos, but you would be wrong.

Make the Most of What There Is 

The bottom line is that American citizens enjoy casino games. In the past, they might have had to book a vacation and head to a resort like Las Vegas or Atlantic City to get their thrills at the tables and on the slots, but that is not the case anymore. Sweepstakes casinos side-step gambling laws by offering No Purchase Necessary entry routes and virtual dual currencies (Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins). These casinos used to operate on the margins, but now they are incredibly sophisticated, and the market is larger than the real-money one.

While the NPN route exists, many players also buy Gold and Sweeps Coins bundles to extend their playing time and improve their chances of winning. This creates a lucrative market for affiliate marketers, but it is not for the faint-hearted. While the promotional law sweepstakes casinos operate under is federal, sweepstakes casinos are not available everywhere. This is because some state lawmakers regard them as a little too close to real-money casinos. They think that rather than them being ‘adjacent,’ they are in fact replicas (and for some players they are).

States Still Stepping In

This has led states like New York and California to block and ban sweepstakes casinos in their jurisdictions, while others find other ways to prevent players from accessing them. Again, this means that the affiliate marketer needs to be on their A game to only target and drive suitable traffic. For some casinos and lawmakers, it seems like a game of cat and mouse, but the stakes are high. Florida has recently demanded that Google, Meta, and TikTok stop allowing sweepstakes casino ads in the state. 

Knocking Down the Barriers

While sweepstakes casinos may have crept in quietly through the back door, the latest gambling-adjacent prediction market apps arrived loudly and triumphantly at the front door. Rather than using loopholes in existing laws, the likes of Kalshi found ways to have new rules written for them. Prediction Markets are officially trading platforms and fall under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. 

While these platforms have been around for decades, they have really burst through this year and are competing directly with established sports betting platforms and offering ‘event trading’ in states where sports betting is not allowed. While it is all confusing, smart affiliate marketers have grasped the opportunities to drive traffic to these sites in return for healthy payouts. 

The US market is forever evolving, and successful affiliates need to be on the ball to move at speed and benefit from the changes. Understanding the market is key, and attending events and sharing knowledge is all part of the journey to a successful venture.

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This content has been produced for Affiverse by an independent Advertiser and expresses their own views, in their own words. If you would like to feature as an advertiser and be interviewed on Affiverse’s media content platform, please email [email protected].