Trust & governance
Affiliate Disclosure — How GambleDragon Makes Money
Affiliate Disclosure — How GambleDragon Makes Money
Plain English version: GambleDragon earns a commission when a reader signs up to a casino through one of our tracked links. The commission is paid by the operator, never by you, and it does not change the order of our rankings. If anything on the site reads like an advert rather than an assessment, that is a mistake on our part — email [email protected] and we will fix it.
This page is the longer version, written to meet UK transparency expectations under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and the CAP Code on gambling advertising, alongside the equivalent rules in the other markets we cover.
What affiliate marketing is
When you click a “Visit casino” button on GambleDragon, the link carries a tracking identifier. If you register at the operator and meet its qualifying conditions, the operator pays us a referral commission. There are several commission models common in the industry — a one-off payment per player, a share of operator revenue, or a mix of the two. We do not publish the specific rates we are on, because they are commercially confidential and vary by operator. The model never changes how we rank anyone.
How commission affects our content
It does not affect rankings. Our best-of lists are ordered by a methodology score, not by what an operator pays. The commission rate is not an input to that score. You can read exactly how the score is built on our methodology page.
It does affect what we cover. We prioritise operators that are relevant to our readers and that we can monetise, because that is what funds the site. Where we cover an operator we have no commercial relationship with, that page carries no affiliate link and earns us nothing — it exists so readers can compare on equal footing.
We do not boost a rating, soften a criticism, or change a ranking in exchange for a higher commission. If we ever did, the methodology score on the page would no longer match the published rubric — which is part of why the rubric is public.
What a tracked link looks like
Affiliate links on GambleDragon are ordinary HTML links pointing at our tracking endpoint, which logs the click and forwards you to the operator with our tracking parameters attached.
We do not use cloaking, hidden redirects, or device fingerprinting to attribute clicks. If you have a tracker blocker installed, the link still takes you to the operator — we simply do not get paid for that visit. We would rather lose the commission than work around your privacy settings.
Where the money goes
Affiliate commission funds the running of the site: content production, the hosting and tooling we use (Cloudflare and related services), and the time spent keeping pages current. We do not run display ads and we do not sell reader data.
What we will not do
- We will not change a rating or a ranking in exchange for a higher commission rate.
- We will not remove or soften a fair criticism in exchange for a commercial arrangement.
- We will not run paid placements disguised as editorial. If we ever publish sponsored content, it will be clearly labelled “Sponsored”. At present we have none.
Our legal basis for disclosure
We disclose because the law requires it and because it is the right thing to do. Commercial intent must be clear to a reasonable reader under the relevant rules in each market we cover:
- UK — Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and the CAP Code on gambling advertising.
- Ireland — Consumer Protection Act 2007 and the ASAI code.
- Canada — provincial consumer-protection law and the Competition Act’s prohibition on misleading representations.
- New Zealand — Fair Trading Act 1986.
- Netherlands — Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) guidance on commercial communications.
Where a market requires specific wording, the per-locale footer carries it. Elsewhere we follow the spirit of “clear and prominent” disclosure.
Conflicts of interest
GambleDragon’s only commercial relationship with operators is the affiliate one described above, and it does not influence the methodology score. If that ever changes for a specific operator, we will disclose it on the relevant page.
Contact
If anything here is unclear, or a page reads like an advert rather than an assessment, email [email protected]. We aim to reply within a couple of working days.
18+. Please gamble responsibly. Support is available from GamCare (0808 8020 133) and BeGambleAware. Always verify an operator’s licence on the relevant regulator’s public register before depositing.