With the rise of social media, influencer marketing has become a powerful strategy in the igaming sector, helping brands connect with younger audiences and boost discovery. In the final part of this iGBA Barcelona 2025 speaker interview series, we speak to Caleb Dykema, co-founder and CEO at affiliate network Vault Sports, about the brand’s story and why smaller affiliates have an advantage over bigger players in capturing the latest trend.
Caleb Dykema, who’ll be speaking on a new formats panel at iGB Affiliate Barcelona next week, grew up on a 40-acre Wisconsin family farm with thousands of chickens, cows, cattle, pigs and turkeys. Though isolating for a kid living far away from friends, the experience turned out to be educational, even for his business later in life.
“Through helping sell chickens and other farm products, I learnt so much from my mom in sales and marketing; Then from my dad, I learned what it means to roll up sleeves and get the hard work done,” Dykema says. “This has really shaped the way I run business and being able to navigate the highs and lows. I didn’t realise at the time that it was going to be so important for me in the future.”
Growing up in a state deeply rooted in sports culture also made Dykema a fan of local teams such as the Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Bucks. Then in his freshman year of high school, he met Zach Nichols, a fellow sports enthusiast and an aspiring coder. The two buddied up and worked on numerous business ideas in college, including a single sweep eraser that “allows teachers to erase a whiteboard faster” as well as a wedding planning software. But nothing took off as massively as Vault Sports.
“Being in the US and with the legalisation of sports betting happening in 2018, it was a perfect time for us. We both wanted to get into an industry that was new and had a high growth potential, so we jumped into this headfirst,” Dykema recalls.
Fresh out of college, the duo soon started their venture with an AI model that predicted NBA games and quickly expanded their portfolio to include a range of digital tools for sports bettors to improve their decisions. Their most successful product, the Vault Sports bet tracking app, landed on the App Store Top 100 chart and was valued at $4 million in 2022, winning them a spot in the Forbes 30 under 30 list in Austin.
Being in the US and with the legalisation of sports betting happening in 2018, it was a perfect time for us
But this is far from the end of the story. Today's Vault Sports is still thriving, reaching seven million sports fans across North America. Their main service, however, has shifted to running an affiliate network from developing consumer-facing products – what led to this transition?
A new goldmine
According to Dykema, the pivot was more of an “accidental discovery during a crazy time”. In 2023, he and Nichols brought in a small handful of influencers to help them promote the app and drive traffic to their operator partners. To their surprise, the experiment took off far beyond expectations.
“We started bringing in tonnes of traffic and we realised there is something here that we didn’t see initially”, says Dykema. “So we started to add more influencers, creators and websites to build up the network, and we kind of pushed the app to the side to focus on this.”
Today, Vault Sports connects around 100 affiliates with leading sportsbooks, daily fantasy platforms, sweepstakes, and online casino brands, including FanDuel and DraftKings. Dykema explains that much of its success stems from early struggles with a "bad affiliate network" when the company launched – one that provided "very little support from account managers" and had a dashboard that "looked like it was built in the 90s."
That frustrating experience pushed the duo to prioritise user experience when building their own network, ensuring that "each affiliate has an account manager who responds within 24 hours" and receives training to drive engagement. Its dashboard consolidates key data, giving affiliates a clear overview of commissions and traffic in one place. The internal tracking tools are built for monitoring affiliate and operator performance to adjust the network’s campaigns. The payment system is also optimised to allow seamless transactions.
Community offers personal connection. People don’t want to get talked at by a brand. They want to be integrated, they want to be entertained and they want to trust and enjoy the content
Community power
Although Vault Sports gathers affiliates of all sizes, around 50% to 60% of its clients are individual content creators, with traditional media sites making up the rest. The split, according to Dykema, comes from his observation that community-centred platforms such as YouTube and Discord tend to have more loyal audiences. Meanwhile, operators are also increasingly seeing the capitalisation potential of influencer-driven promotions.
“Community offers personal connection. People don’t want to get talked at by a brand. They want to be integrated, they want to be entertained and they want to trust and enjoy the content,” says Dykema. “The two things we always teach our influencer-type affiliates are staying true and staying authentic. Your promotion should never feel like an ad. Otherwise, you will lose that trust.”
Commenting on recent challenges in the affiliate space imposed by Google’s updates and its war on parasite SEO, Dykema says they are “only part of the story” that traditional sites are losing their popularity.
The amazing thing about smaller affiliates is their ability to pivot quickly and to spot and capitalise on new trends – that’s basically how we built our business
“Consumers are looking more for new products and experiences. The biggest channel for twentysomethings right now is video content, particularly short-form videos, so why not meet the audience where they are?”
Dykema notes that this industry shift can be a good opportunity for smaller players to expand their reach: “The amazing thing about smaller affiliates is their ability to pivot quickly and to spot and capitalise on new trends – that’s basically how we built our business. There are still so many untapped niches that are available, so I think we’re in an era where small affiliates are taking off.”
Specifically, he highlights three key trends emerging in Vault Sports’ network. The first is the growing use of daily promos such as pre-set betting squares, odds boosts and discounted picks, which they’ve found to have “a bigger pull” than traditional first-time deposit deals; In terms of format, Dykema recommends using codes instead of long URLs, as players often find lengthy links unappealing and are less likely to click on them. When seamlessly integrated into content, these promos are particularly effective at capturing audience attention.
“For example, let’s say an article discusses a prediction like Jordan Love throwing for a certain number of yards. The writer could then mention ‘By the way, there’s a discounted pick for Jordan Love at Sleeper Fantasy – check it out’ instead of putting the offers at the end of the article. This way, the offers are deeply integrated within that channel and they don’t feel like an advertisement,” he explains.
We’re preparing for Texas and California legalisation, locking down affiliates who create content focused on sports teams in those states
This year, Dykema is dreaming big for Vault Sports. His plan involves doubling the number of affiliates within the network and developing more tools to help them engage with communities.
“Then beyond 2025, we can expand into other niches, specifically into icasino and other areas of sports fandom. We’re also preparing for Texas and California legalisation, locking down affiliates who create content focused on sports teams in those states. Further down the line, we can even expand into other countries using the same model, building communities across the world,” he adds.
Caleb Dykema will be speaking at “Video Killed the Text-based Star: Platforms & Formats for Engaging the Next Generation” on 21 January 2025 at iGBA Barcelona 2025.