Affiliate survival guide: Australia’s looming blanket ad ban

The Australian sports betting industry is booming, but upcoming regulatory changes could put its affiliates out of business.

A near-total ban on gambling advertisements is looming, signaling a sharp pivot from a culture that treats punting like a national pastime, to one that all but prohibits its promotion.

How can affiliates survive such a seismic shift?

Before covering strategies to counter these changes, let's first understand what these changes consist of.

What's changing & when

For various reasons, some of which remain unclear, parliament has neither passed nor published its new advertising rules. 

Major changes are coming, though. To date, sources have reported that the upcoming reforms will contain some combination of:

• A partial ban of strict scheduling rules for TV and radio ads.
• The formation of a national online gambling regulator.
• A complete ban on all forms of online gambling ads, including across social media.

The devil will be in the details of whatever is ultimately decided, but these are the types of regulations that turn affiliate businesses upside down. Smart site owners should start preparing now based on the available information.

Waiting on parliament 

Affiliates are facing a frustrating mix of knowns (that reforms are coming) and unknowns (the specifics of these reforms) in 2025. 

Will there be limits on online advertising or an all-out ban? Will the definition of "advertising" include emails? How about written calls-to-action (CTAs) in otherwise allowable content?

At Before You Bet, we're planning for these regulations to be extremely restrictive. For the purpose of this article, let's make the same assumptions:

• All betting advertisements will be banned. Even simple site banners will be prohibited.
• Transactional CTAs like "Sign Up" and "Join Now" will be considered to be promotional and no longer allowed.
• Editorial and organic CTAs will be the only allowable conversion element left standing. "Bet Now," "Play This Pick," and "Tail This Tip" are examples. 

To navigate this new landscape, Australian affiliates can use the following strategies to keep the clicks coming after online ads are banned.

1. Centre your content around user benefits

Let's be clear: there's a place for tips and picks on every sports betting affiliate site.

But spamming the internet with a huge amount of AI-generated, SEO-managed picks is neither smart nor sustainable. You won't be able to brute-force your way to big referral numbers simply by shouting out your selections sans any type of surrounding advertisements.

Instead, think about user benefits and delivering value to your readers. What will they find most interesting, helpful or entertaining? How can you enhance their betting experience?

Those aren't rhetorical questions, and they have some fairly straightforward answers.

Nail your niches

Don't just cover Australia's biggest sports. Take your AFL, NRL, cricket and horse racing coverage a layer deeper. 

Supplement your standard picks articles with sport-specific content like "Compare odds for this week's racing carnival," or "Your guide to betting big bash." These articles cater to bettors who like discussing these topics in greater detail and would also create numerous (and natural) opportunities to include affiliate links throughout.

Build your tools

Betting tools can engage and retain repeat visitors. Tools can build trust too, which can lead to more readers taking the actions you want them to.

From bankroll trackers and betting trends, to cheat sheets and hedging calculators, there are a myriad of tools you could offer to make your site synonymous with someone's sports betting routine. Each new touchpoint created will in turn create more opportunities for organic referrals. 

Be bold, be different

Provide value that your competitors can't replicate by creating truly unique content.

For example, many affiliate sites create cookie-cutter sportsbook reviews. As an alternative, create content that extensively compares and contrasts the features you'll find at different Australian sports betting sites. 

You don't want to step on any toes, but you also shouldn't be so afraid of creating honest, helpful content that you steer clear of certain topics entirely. The Australian market is becoming restrictive enough as is.

Video volume

As a medium, video should have a significant spot in your 2025 strategies. An active video presence will give you new ways to attract your target audience and keep their attention across multiple platforms.

Multimedia will unlock new content ideas, too. Anything from a live "sweat your bets" show, to a series on betting fundamentals could resonate. Affiliate links could be shared on-screen as shortened URLs so viewers can play along with the hosts.

2. Fill your own top-of-funnel

If betting ads stop being broadcast at scale, then your top-of-funnel will surely shrink. So how will you spur your audience to still search for the terms and topics you want them to?

Investing in brand-building is one option. If you have any type of ad budget, running campaigns that are optimised for reach, rather than clicks, would generate awareness. This in turn would lead to more people being comfortable clicking your content when they come across it. It'd also simply keep the larger betting industry top-of-mind in the same way widespread broadcast ads currently do.

Another avenue to explore is understanding how to successfully train Large Language Models (LLMs) like Gemini and ChatGPT to crawl your content and include it in search results. This will put you in front of your target audience even when they're not thinking about your site.

Demand generation isn't sexy, but it will become a necessity if operators are no longer spending big on broadcasting their betting content across mainstream Australian media.

3. Make your social media even more social

New regulations won't impact the importance of social media. They will, however, affect how you approach your social campaigns.

Prioritise "owned" platforms

Strong communities add stability in the face of significant change. Not only can your digital tribe help you transcend the Senate's new statutes, but it also can help you navigate the recurring shake-ups created by the social media sites themselves.

The more you lean into "leased" platforms like X and Facebook, the more at risk you are of being burned by their volatility. Instead, prioritise social platforms you "own" – or at least places where you have some semblance of control over the content in your community's timeline.

Adding a Discord server to your site would be an example of "owning" more of your social media spaces. Another example would be to join Reddit and build a custom subreddit for your brand. Both sites would give you a small degree of moderative control over the content that flows through it. These specific social sites also will enable you to post more engaging and interactive content, such as polls, trivia and memes.

Invest in influencers

What better way is there to grow your audience than by borrowing someone else's?

Partner with sports influencers and niche creators to co-promote your site, grow your social presence, and increase your touchpoints for affiliate link placements. 

Influencers hold power over people's purchasing decisions. An advertising ban will make it all the more important for you to be able to activate these types of audiences.

4. Put mobile on a pedestal

Mobile makes up more than 65% of online traffic. More than 87% of Australian bettors reported that they've used a mobile device to place a wager [Australian Institute of Family Studies]. To say we're working in a mobile-first market is an understatement.

If ads are completely cut out from your online equation, it'll become all the more mission-critical that you deliver a high-quality mobile experience. You'll be held in higher regard by search engine crawlers and repeat readers alike.

5. Keep one eye on the road ahead

These restrictions shouldn't catch you off guard, and future reforms shouldn't, either. Whether you need to navigate a new law or learn to use an LLM to automate a new process, change will be the only constant Australian affiliates can count on for the foreseeable.

Proper prep isn't limited to planning, either. Be sure to prioritise short-term strategies that allow you to build more sustainably. We've emphasised the importance of high-quality content and community-building throughout this article. These are the types of timeless, durable tactics that will pay long-term dividends regardless of how the industry develops along the way.

We've been here before

This isn't the first time that Australian sports betting affiliates have been forced to make major adjustments to their acquisition strategies. In May 2019, the National Consumer Protection Framework put new policies in place that banned sportsbooks "from offering account holders credit, vouchers or other rewards to open a betting account." 

This reform, now affectionately referred to as "the bonus bet ban", reshaped the Australian market's approach to affiliate referrals.

We survived that. And with the right strategies, Australian sports betting affiliates will survive this round of restrictions, too.