Affiliate Disclosure

Fortunica Online is an affiliate publication. This page explains in detail what that means, what it does and doesn't buy, what the commercial relationships look like, and the cost of the editorial independence we maintain.

How it works

When a reader clicks a recommendation link on Fortunica Online and registers an account at the linked operator, that operator pays us a commission on the player's lifetime activity. The commission structure varies — typically a share of net revenue (the operator's gross gaming yield from the player, less bonus costs and chargebacks), occasionally a one-off CPA payment per qualified registration, sometimes a hybrid. We're paid in arrears, monthly, in pounds sterling.

What this means in practice: the compensation flows to us regardless of whether the player wins or loses. Conventional wisdom is that affiliate sites are paid when players lose, which is technically correct on a net-revenue model — but the lifetime nature of the relationship means that a player who wins big in their first month and never plays again earns us less than a player who deposits modestly across two years and breaks even. Our commercial incentive is for the player to keep playing, not for them to lose specifically.

What affiliate revenue does buy

• Hosting, domain and infrastructure costs
• Sarah Collins's, Daniel Pereira's and Imogen Khatri's working hours
• The £4,200 annual testing budget — real-money deposits at operators we review
• Editorial-team training and reading time on UK gambling regulation and consumer law
• The cost of delisting operators (lost commissions on previously-recommended sites that we've removed for cause)

What affiliate revenue does not buy

• Position in our recommendation list — ratings are weighted by the published criteria, not by commission rate
• Editorial control over review content — operators do not see drafts and do not approve published copy
• "Sponsored" or "promoted" reviews — we don't sell editorial space, full stop
• Suppression of negative findings — three operators have been delisted since launch despite being commercially valuable
• Removal of warnings about specific offers — if a bonus has a trap clause, the trap is named in the review regardless of partnership status

The cost of independence — in numbers

This is the section other affiliate sites tend to skip. Fortunica Online's average revenue per thousand readers (RPM) sits at around £4.10 across the most recent quarter. Industry-wide RPMs for UK casino affiliates are commonly £8–12. The gap is the practical cost of editorial independence — the operators willing to pay top-tier commissions are typically the ones least willing to accept critical reviews. We make less per reader than the affiliate sites that suppress trap-clause warnings or run paid placements.

On the testing side: 2025 budget £4,200, net loss £1,800 after operator-paid winnings. That £1,800 comes out of affiliate revenue rather than reader pockets, and it's accounted for as a fixed editorial cost rather than a one-off expense.

How we manage the conflict of interest

The central conflict — that we earn money when readers act on our recommendations — is structural and unavoidable for any affiliate publication. The guards we use:

• Commission-blind ratings. Sarah and Daniel do not see commission rates during the review and rating process. Commercial terms are negotiated separately and after publication.
• Delisting on cause. When an operator's behaviour fails our criteria post-publication, we remove the recommendation regardless of revenue impact. Three delistings since launch, detailed on About Us.
• No exclusive-code-for-rating trades. Operators offering "exclusive bonus codes" in exchange for higher placement get politely declined.
• Transparent commission structure. Where readers ask about specific operator relationships, we answer.
• Reader-error feedback loop. Reader-reported issues with operators we recommend feed into review revisions, even when the revision costs us commission revenue.

What you should assume about affiliate sites generally

The UK affiliate space is large, lightly regulated outside of ASA oversight on gambling advertising standards, and contains a wide quality range. Some sites run editorial standards similar to ours; many run sponsored content disguised as reviews; a small minority publish operator-supplied copy under a fictional reviewer byline. The CAP Code section 16 on gambling advertising sets minimum standards but doesn't reach editorial integrity. Reader vigilance is required across the space.

If you want to test an affiliate site's independence, the test we recommend: look for delisted operators or downgraded ratings. A site with no critical reviews is a site that's not reading T&Cs.

Compliance with UK advertising standards

Our content is produced consistent with the CAP Code on gambling advertising under section 16, including the requirements on socially responsible marketing, age-restricted audience targeting, and prominence of responsible-gambling messaging. The Curaçao licence under which most of our recommended operators run is offshore and outside UKGC jurisdiction; our coverage is targeted at UK adults aged 18 and over.

Contact

Commercial enquiries, partnership questions: [email protected]. Editorial integrity issues: [email protected]. Both inboxes are read by Sarah personally.