New products hit the market every day. Some offer tiny payouts, while others seem to be sky-high. In the same GEO, the payout for a player can differ by almost two times, and arbitrage marketers often go for the product with the biggest number. But that approach isn’t exactly objective – payout size depends on a ton of hidden financial and analytical factors.

Nobody is just handing out higher rates for “top GEO, top source.” Products boost payouts for completely different reasons – and today, we’re breaking them down.

Where Does That Number Come From?

You can’t just pull a payout out of thin air. It’s based on a bunch of factors, one of the biggest being the cost of acquiring a player in a specific GEO. Every product that enters the affiliate market has to know the lead cost for its target GEOs and sources. To figure this out, they use:

• Internal testing – The company’s own buyers test the offer and determine the optimal lead price.
• Outsourced testing – The product is tested by external experts, like a team with proven experience.

Once the lead cost is locked in, the operational expenses are added – accounts, services, salaries, and more. Only then is an additional margin included to form the expected net profit for the arbitrage marketer. And of course, the advertiser’s return on investment plays a role, too.

In short, payout rates are mainly based on the cost of acquiring a lead. That’s why you hear about the big profits from PPC and the goldmine of T1 GEOs.

Bigger Payout – Higher Profit?

“The payout depends on GEO.” “PPC is gold, but push traffic isn’t great.” Technically, these statements hold some truth – payouts really do depend on tier levels, and PPC traffic is more targeted than push traffic. But here’s the thing… Profit doesn’t directly depend on payout size.

Let’s break it down:

Imagine an arbitrage team picks a product for Switzerland with PPC from Advertiser A, getting a $150 payout per lead. They start running traffic. Then, they find a similar product from Advertiser B – but with a $300 payout. Same conditions – same GEO, traffic source, and approach – but double the payout.

Sounds like an easy switch, right? Twice the payout, twice the earnings? Not so fast.

Here’s the catch:

• On Product A, the conversion rate is 1 in 5.
• On Product B, the conversion rate is 1 in 20.

Let’s say the team spends $5,000 and gets 300 clicks on both offers:

• With Product A, they convert 60 players.
• With Product B, they convert only 15 players.

Final earnings:

• Product A: $9,000 profit.
• Product B: $4,500 profit.

That’s half the money! Even though Advertiser B had a higher payout, the lower conversion rate killed the profit. And that’s the key – conversion rate matters.

Pro Tip: Split your traffic and test different products to track trends and find what actually performs better. Profit and payout aren’t directly proportional – just because an advertiser bumps up the rate, doesn’t mean you’ll make more. But why do bumps happen? 

Competitors’ Impact

The market itself plays a huge role. In general, industry benchmarks should be similar across the board. Payment methods, slot variety, mobile adaptability, and support – these all shape a casino. But to attract players, increase value, and boost LTV, companies optimize hundreds of factors. This naturally leads to competition – not just for players, but for affiliates too. And this is where things get interesting. Advertisers can offer rates that are not just 10–20% different, but 50–100% higher. Why? 

Because of price dumping. Some affiliate networks artificially inflate payouts to stand out from other resellers. Some products boost rates just to look better than competitors. But most of the time, there’s no solid foundation behind these inflated payouts.

Affiliate networks may resort to dumping to stand out from hundreds of other resellers. Products do it to appear better than the competition. But most of the time, there’s nothing solid behind it. Here’s the key: no one will pay you more than they earn. Keep that in mind and test not just high payouts but mid-range ones too. The real profit lies in deep optimization. And the payout amount? That’s not the main thing. What truly matters is knowing how to work with it and calculating profit over the long run, not just in the moment.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s get back to the actual payout size. Do GEOs and traffic sources affect it? Absolutely! But in different ways. On one hand, there’s the cost of acquiring players. On the other, there’s their spending power, level of interest, and the approach used to bring them in.

Geography

First and foremost, the payout for any product in any vertical will be higher when working with more solvent GEOs. Tier-1, tier-2, tier-3 – examples include Switzerland, Turkey, and Bangladesh, respectively. The wealthier the local population, the more they can spend on the product. This means the advertiser can share a greater profit with you. But attracting such traffic is harder – both financially and in terms of approach, as the perception of casinos by high-income players differs significantly from that of lower-income users.

Traffic Source

Push notifications, for example, don’t bring as engaged an audience as PPC, where the player is already warmed up and actively looking for slots or even a specific casino.

High-quality traffic sources include:

• SEO
• PPC
• UAC
• Facebook

These sources bring in more active and long-term players, which is confirmed by statistics across thousands of products. As a result, advertisers can and want to pay more for them.

Often, affiliate networks create different offers for the same product and GEO, but for different sources. Another option is a table indicating payouts for traffic from each source.

There are other ways to acquire a solid, engaged audience:

• Email marketing to hot databases (emails, social media).
• Private resources with targeted subscribers (niche channels, websites).

However, GEO and traffic source affect not the payout itself but rather the cost of acquiring a player from that GEO and source. The payout’s job is to cover acquisition costs and ensure the arbitrageur earns a profit. Dumping, on the other hand, is just a marketing trick.

Approaches

Let’s make one thing clear: the payout rate isn’t set in stone. Sure, we already said an advertiser can’t just push it up or down whenever they feel like it. The affiliate team’s job is to set the initial rate correctly and adjust from there if needed. If there’s a reason to tweak it, it will happen.

The main reason to raise or lower the rate is traffic quality. Besides the source itself, the funnels affiliates use also play a huge role. When we talk about funnels, we mean literally everything: the source, creatives, copy, audience targeting, keywords, product offering system (if it’s a landing page), CTA, and much more. Everything that influences whether a player makes a deposit, plays, and comes back to the platform.

So what’s the difference? In scam traffic, the affiliate’s goal is to squeeze as much money as possible. Fake screenshots, misleading calls, persuasion over the phone – it’s all fair game. The product doesn’t care how the money is taken, but if it comes from scams, the casino gets zero benefit from that player. The payout amount (CPA, rev-share, whatever) depends entirely on how much the scammer can pull before the player gives up.

Something in between is misleading funnels like “Breaking news: A guy from your city just won a car at Casino XYZ!” The player gets interested but is also being heavily influenced into believing they can win just like their fellow countryman, friend, or coworker. This approach lasts longer than pure scam tactics but still isn’t top-quality.

And then, we have classic gambling approaches. They attract players genuinely interested in gaming as a way to unwind. And there are tons of strategies here. Classification by traffic source and attraction mechanics, target product and player retention, copy and creatives, bonuses, and much more.

Yes, most gamblers come to a casino hoping to win. We hear nice stories about how some see casinos as a way to relax, not just to chase those triple sevens. And sure, those players exist. Many are fine burning through their deposit just for the fun of it. But they’re still gamblers at heart. They appreciate a solid game selection, a smart bonus system, good player treatment, and, of course, the thrill of landing big wins.

Product Quality

It’s not just the arbitrageur who determines what kind of players they attract. Players don’t differ from casino to casino. A random French player might land in a casino with just one slot and a single working payment method, deposit €5, and leave. How much should the product pay the arbitrageur for that? The casino simply can’t offer a market-average payout because the product itself is low-grade and poorly built. The player won’t stick around, won’t generate profit, and that means there’s no money to pay out. Now, if the same French player lands in a high-quality casino, sticks around for a year, and their LTV brings in €5,000 instead of €5, suddenly, it makes sense to pay a couple of hundred for that player.

The point? Don’t just look at the payout – look at the product through a gambler’s eyes. Evaluate it as if you were the player. Is depositing easy? Are there enough slots? Does the site work well on mobile? You could be sending quality players to a bad casino that can’t provide a solid experience – meaning it can’t provide you with solid payouts either.

Wrapping Up

Now, let’s talk about the type of affiliate program. A direct advertiser can usually offer higher rates since they don’t factor in extra commissions – they make money on the product, not arbitrage. People often overlook this. Test, split-test. You can’t just guess where you’ll get the best results. And you definitely can’t walk into a new affiliate program demanding a higher rate just because your old one paid more.

As a direct advertiser, we’re happy to increase payouts for high-quality traffic – we know how to share. And as an ethical advertiser with in-house products, we want everyone in the industry to approach the market with real understanding, not just treating arbitrage like some fleeting side hustle. That means it’s not enough to just demand higher rates – you have to meet the standards and look beyond just the payout number. 😉