Publishers Rethink Gambling Traffic Monetization, Build Ad-Networks

10 October 2026

High-volume iGaming publishers are increasingly shifting away from programmatic advertising in favor of direct partnerships and self-owned ad networks. The rise in sports betting and gambling-linked content has created a highly valuable audience that publishers are eager to monetize more effectively.

The programmatic advertising supply chain siphons off significant margins. According to an ISBA and PwC study, on average around half of the initial $1 spent simply evaporates, leaving the publisher with only 51% of the original $1. This is even worse for high-cost investments like direct publisher advertising, where only 36% of the original $100 make it to the publisher. With a high-value audience, publishers want to find solutions that capture a bigger share of the total ad spend. Gambling.com, for example, saw a 36% return on ad spend with its proprietary ads, while an open marketplace gamble delivered only a 6.7% return.

Affiliate Programs and Sponsorships Gain Ground

Gambling publishers are exploring a variety of new monetization strategies to make the most of their traffic. Affiliate marketing remains a cornerstone, with models like CPA, RevShare, and Hybrid rewards for referring players to gambling sites. Alongside that, publishers are increasingly partnering with gambling operators for direct sponsorship deals.

Gannett has forged a media partnership with Gambling.com to co-produce sports betting content and share referral revenue. The publisher covers legal sports betting topics, while Gambling.com provides expertise and revenue-sharing deals that are expected to grow. Similarly, theScore has expanded into sports betting, forecasting that this could dwarf the advertising revenue from its core app.

The Attraction of Programmatic Garbage

While programmatic advertising is gradually losing favor with publishers and advertisers, it still accounts for a significant portion of gambling ad spend. Publishers can get steady placement through ad networks, but placements are often poorly distributed and hard to control or optimize.

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Private marketplaces, along with dealing with advertisers directly, tend to deliver better results. The ISBA study showed that private marketplaces delivered 54% of advertiser spend to the publisher, compared to 49% in open auctions. Programmatic Direct accounts for nearly a third of online gambling ad spend in the UK.

Gambling Advertisers Prefer Native Formats

Advertisers in the gambling industry often prefer partnering directly with publishers and retaining control over their ads. This includes sponsorships, native content integrations, branded odds widgets, and custom skins. These formats offer more control and contextually-relevant placement compared to anonymous banner ads competing in open auctions.

The rise of these partnerships has led to new developments in ad technology: the publisher-side ad server. This allows a publisher to match specific ads to targeted placements without an intermediary bidding process. It eliminates much of the waste in the supply chain and lets both the publisher and advertiser get what they want: contextual ads and readable content.

This shift is a natural evolution of rising gambling content and player volume online—publishers are adapting to follow the money, and partners are finding more cost-effective and direct ways to capitalize on valuable gambling audiences.