Gambling.com Uses Legacy Newspapers To Promote Sports Betting Content
Partnership Works For All Parties
It’s not new for sports gambling companies to partner with media outlets to expand the reach of their content and to drive more viewers to their betting platforms. Take Penn Entertainment’s (short-lived) partnership with Barstool Sports or FanDuel’s partnership with Stadium.
These deals make a lot of sense for all parties involved. One type of media outlet that typically hasn’t been part of such partnerships has been legacy newspapers but Gambling.com is changing that with their recent newspaper gambling deals with two major newspaper groups.
McClatchy and Gannett are two major American newspaper owners and Gambling.com has entered into deals with each of them to essentially run their sports betting coverage online. Basically, Gambling.com makes money by producing gambling-related content with the aim of drawing viewers (and bettors) to online sportsbooks.
If they do, they get paid and as part of these sports betting partnerships, the newspapers get paid as well.
The combination matches the expertise of a company like Gambling.com in the more niche online sports betting content space with the reach and reputation of major newspapers.
As newspapers have shrunk in recent years due to the expansion of online news media and the reduction of available ad dollars, they have been forced to look for other method of revenue.
So, for major newspaper companies, this kind of partnership is a win-win because it allows for them to have relevant and timely sports betting coverage that could attract new readers while also receiving a portion of the referral fees that companies like Gambling.com get.
Referral System Is Very Profitable
Generally speaking, companies like Gambling.com can make money in a variety of ways through this kind of affiliate advertising system where their content turns readers into actually betting customers with sportsbooks.
There are also different setups for each partnerships and while Gambling.com hasn’t publicly said which method (or methods) it uses for its newspaper gambling deals with McClatchy and Gannett, it can be either a set fee for each new bettor that goes to a sportsbook through the referral link or a percentage of revenue earned by the sportsbook on that’s customer’s behalf.
Gambling.com has said that this affiliate referral system represents around 15% of the company’s business.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Gannett said that it pursues similar content-sharing arrangements with other companies in other business areas — which is refered to as performance marketing deals — but that the one with Gambling.com is the most profitable, which is unsurprising because of how much money there is to be made in the online sports gambling space like when bettors wager on sports betting spreads.
There are certainly some ethical questions about how interconnected newspapers and sports media content companies should be when the end goal of those content companies is to attract people to their sportsbooks.
However, as legacy newspapers struggle with the economic realities of the modern news economy, they have to consider all possible revenue streams which is why these types of deals are so valuable. There isn’t much, if any, additional work required on behalf of the newspapers.
Newspapers’ Built-In Audiences Are Valuable
Newspapers need to take full advantage of any of their desirable assets and, fortunately for them, one of those assets is the existing infrastructure, readership base, name brand and, maybe more importantly, search engine optimization notoriety.
A key component of these newspaper gambling deals between conglomerates like McClatchy and Gannett and sites like Gambling.com is that big newspapers have huge SEO footprints.
Essentially, that means Gambling.com’s post on the website of the San Francisco Inquirer, for example, will pop up much more prominently in search engine results than if that same post were on one of Gambling.com’s own affiliate sites.
So, gambling news with the backing of a major newspaper that gets more traction in a Google search will reach many more people than it would on a lesser-known sites. That’s why it’s critical for Gambling.com to leverage the stature of its newspaper partners to increase its own traffic and, accordingly, the amount of people who click on its content and wind up betting.
This leads to increased revenues for all parties involved. The newspapers just have to grant Gambling.com the space to publish its own content while Gambling.com just has to produce said content and provide the newspapers with their agreed-upon share of the affiliate revenue.
It’s a very smart idea and one that clearly has been a big revenue source for Gambling.com as well as newspapers.
Of course, Gambling.com would prefer that new gamblers sign up using of the company’s own websites because then no revenue sharing would have to be done.
But, they would rather have some new bettors sign up with the newspaper link — at a higher cost to Gambling.com — than no one sign up because of the lack of visibility of its own native sites.
For Gambling news, odds analysis, and more, visit Point Spreads Sports Magazine.
