Casino affiliates get charged admin fee when they bring players to casinos. This fee covers the cost of processing player deposits and withdrawals and fees paid to the game providers.
For instance, VAVADA Casino affiliate program has:
- Average deposit fee of 8.51% (6-9% depending on the payment system)
- Average withdrawal fee of 5.92%
- Game provider fee of 14%
GamblingCraft affiliate program (PlayFortuna and Booi casinos):
- Average deposit fee is 7.06% (changes depending on the payment system)
- Average withdrawal fee is 1.89%
- Game provider fee is 13%
These are the numbers provided by managers, and I wanted to see if that’s what affiliates are charged in reality.
The goal wasn’t to calculate how much they charge for withdrawals, deposits and games separately. I was interested in calculating how much do affiliates get after all costs have been deducted.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GGLU9abErzkKuZn6Ps2ejdBHxEvtG8rq83GrDTvtktk/edit?usp=sharing
The calculations are provided in the google sheets doc in the link above. They are very simple. You can copy the spreadsheet and enter your data to find the admin fee you’ve been charged. Enter your data into the green columns and you’ll automatically get the result.
- Player deposit
- Player withdrawal
- Your revenue share
- Your income from the player
If the information isn’t available, ask your affiliate manager to provide it. You’ll need to see the stats for each player. Or you can create a new referral link and ask your friend to deposit and lose, let’s say $10. That’s an alternative method of collecting the necessary data.
Deposits – withdrawals = profit from a player. But it isn’t used to calculate affiliate’s profit. Instead, it’s the 100% revshare, which is a smaller amount, that is used. And the difference between the two is the admin fee.
The most accurate results we get if a player claims no bonuses and has no remaining balance. Otherwise, the result won’t match the official admin fee. So, do calculations for several players and compare the results.
How Much Do Affiliate Programs Actually Charge?
In reality, the fee charged to cover the costs is much higher!!! That’s because bonuses claimed by players will affect the actual admin fee.
Example 1
A player made a deposit, lost some (or all) of it and withdrew the remaining balance. No bonus was claimed. In this case, the admin fee will be exactly what affiliate partners have set.
Example 2
Assume everything is the same, but this time the player claims bonuses. It’s obvious that deposit bonuses, cashback and other types of rewards offer extra funds that extend the time players play. This results in the increase of game provider fee and withdrawal fee in case bonuses are wagered and withdrawn.
The official fee of 25-30% can go up to 40%, 50% and even 60%, depending on the number of bonuses players have claimed and whether or not they managed to clear and withdraw them. That means that the actual profit affiliates earn will depend not only on the admin fee set by the affiliate program manager, but also on the casino’s bonus policy.
The second tab in the google spreadsheet is the hypothetical case provided to demonstrate how admin fee changes affiliates’ earnings. Suppose everything except the admin fee is the same across all casinos: 50% revenue share, 1 million lost by a player, no bonuses claimed. This is one unrealistic example, but it highlights the difference.
P.S. The data provided in the spreadsheet is from my affiliate account and is verified by the affiliate program managers.
