Affiliate Interview Series - Adam A.

[GPWA Daniel]

(This interview was originally published in the July 2025 issue of the GPWA Times Magazine.)

Your journey took an interesting turn when you decided to leave law school. Can you elaborate on what sparked that decision and what you saw in the casino affiliate marketing niche that convinced you to change paths?
Coming out of high school, I had no real interest in education or in making something out of myself career-wise. I was a part-time bartender, spending most of my time touring with a metal band. Not until I turned 23-24 did I start questioning where my life was heading and realize that I needed to make some changes in order to give myself a chance at a more fulfilling and comfortable life. Since I come from an academic family, my first thought was obviously to attend university in order to land a high-paying job. Without really remembering why, becoming a lawyer was something that felt almost obvious to me. Fast forward a year, I moved from the south of Sweden to Stockholm to attend Law School.

I realized that I very much enjoyed the process of learning something new, especially something as heavy and knowledge-packed as law. I found myself studying a lot, but also how much I enjoyed the process of “how to learn.” I felt almost entrepreneurial in the way I was approaching learning. For me, it was not about cramming in as much information as I could, but rather how I could effectively make my learning process as optimized as possible. This made me realize that if there was something that I wanted to learn, I now had the tools to do so.

Fast forward to having a housewarming party in the apartment where me and my friend at the time were sharing in Stockholm. I invited some of my close friends, and my friend also invited some of his own. My friend also let me know that one guy from his old high school was going to stay at our place that night since he was attending a course in hypnotics in Stockholm that weekend. This guy’s name was Carl.

Carl was a funny guy, and the only thing he brought was a single bottle of gin, which he was drinking on the rocks. Me and Carl hit it off immediately, and when I asked Carl what he was working with, he said that he was building websites that compared online casinos. As a poor law student, hungry to learn new things, I was immediately intrigued. “What if I can do this on the side in order to make some extra money?” At that time, I had no intention of not going through with law school.

The day after, Carl had left, but I was still very much interested in learning more. So I did like what I recommend most people to do when they want to do something – I just started. The same evening, I had my first really ugly casino affiliate website up and running, and with some guidance from Carl, it started to take up more and more of my time.

Fast forward 1.5 years, I was sitting in the lunch room of the law firm I was working at as an intern at the time, and I had a casual conversation with one of the associates there. I don’t know who brought it up, but the salary of this associate came up. And in my head I was like, “wait a minute, I am already making more money with my ****** casino affiliate website than this person working 10-12 hours a day” (Yes, I do understand that associates makes less than the seasoned lawyers, and that this person most likely makes more than that today).

So that day, I decided that I was going to finish my current semester and then focus my attention on my casino affiliate business. I’d like to clarify that at that time, I was not hungry for the money; I was hungry for the freedom and challenge of running my own business. And being able to do all of that from a laptop was one of the really intriguing things for me (and something that was not that heard of back in 2017).

Can you share a bit about your life before entering the online gaming world?
I was born in 1991 and grew up in Helsingborg, Sweden. Coming from a liberal family, there was never any pressure on me to take a certain path in life. When a 13-year-old me saw a concert by the band Mando Diao, I instantly decided that I wanted to become a rock star. From that point, I bought my first guitar, created a really ****** (amazing) band with two friends and we started rehearsing in my dad’s basement. I became obsessed with mastering this instrument and even attended music school at the age of 15. Fast forward a couple of years, and I got invited to become the new guitar player in a local metal band.

I clearly remember at that time, me and the other guitar player were discussing a lot about what it would take for us to make it big. We couldn’t just rehearse and write songs like all the other hundreds of bands at our level in “hopes” that one day something will happen. So we decided to treat the band as a business instead. Full focus on marketing, budgeting, and everything else that makes businesses successful. For us, the band became a product for us to succeed with. After many months of hard work, we got signed to the label Sony Music, got a management deal, and a booking company.

So, for a couple of years, we paid for our success with sweat and tears, but quickly realized that the music industry is not designed for people to succeed. Members of the band moved away, someone’s girlfriend got pregnant, and others started studying. And it was at this time that I decided to attend law school. I know it’s a big shift in life to go from a sweaty tour bus to a classroom. But I realized at that point that life enables you to take sharp U-turns, as long as you put your everything you have to making it work.

My point with this answer is that I honestly don’t think it would have mattered that much what I wanted to do, if I woke up every day wanting it badly enough, and applied the right ways to get things done - it would eventually happen. I was never the best musician, nor was I the smartest law student. I am even far from the best casino affiliate marketer. But for me, I will never use my incapabilities as an excuse to not go after something I knew I deeply wanted.

Looking back, what were some of the initial challenges you faced when you were first starting out in casino affiliate marketing?
The first one was being completely overwhelmed by what I was supposed to do. The concept was easy; I saw all of these websites listing online casinos, and it didn’t really seem like a hard thing to do. But the more you fail, the more you progress, and the more you realize what I’d like to call “informed pessimism.”

When you start out, you are going from an uninformed optimism about all the riches that are promised upon you if you manage to pull this off. But the more you learn, the more you realize what you don’t know. The hardest part of this was to get out of the stages of “crisis of meaning” - to not crash and burn and to actually succeed/reach an informed optimism. In other words, having enough proof of concept that it is going to work. For me, the challenges are often mental challenges.

The biggest immediate obstacle I believe you’ll be facing, especially when using SEO as a means of lead generation, is delayed gratification. It’s not going to happen fast, and it’s not going to be a straight path, but if you give up, it will never happen.

You've successfully built and sold three casino affiliate businesses. Can you walk us through the general process of identifying a promising opportunity?
My strategies have never been revolutionary. I have never created anything ground-breaking, I have simply gone off the things that I’ve seen work hundreds of times for others. The information is all out there, and it lies in the competitor's analysis. If I can just claim enough market shares within a certain market or niche to get my website(s) to a certain point of monthly recurring revenue so that I can sell them for a 20-30 times multiple, I’m going to do exactly that.

My one real strategy has been to talk as much as I can to more successful affiliates, see what they are doing, and do the same. Obviously, at one point, I got my brain to be selective in the things I wanted to implement, and I probably unconsciously created my own strategies. But this is how I crafted my own recipe of success with my websites (and ask anyone else in the industry, if you have three successful projects, you probably have 10 other ones that completely failed).

The online gaming industry is constantly evolving. How do you stay ahead of new trends, regulations, and technologies that impact affiliate marketing?
I do this mostly by just being where other casino affiliates hang out. It could be inside the forum of GPWA, in Skype groups, and also, of course, inside my own community CasinoAffMastery. The YouTube algorithm feed is also very useful in giving me suggestions and information on updates that are happening, both in terms of SEO but also in terms of the rapidly evolving AI industry.

Another really good source of this information is being in contact with affiliate managers who represent the casino operators I’m working with. They are always very up-to-date with regulations and market trends.

As I am creating new content for my YouTube channel, research in preparation for this is also something that helps me stay up to date with everything that has an impact on this industry.

What are some of the core SEO strategies that have been most effective for driving traffic and conversions to your iGaming affiliate websites?
In terms of SEO, building a very solid foundation is for me the most important thing. Slow and steady wins the race. I never go overboard on backlinks or trying to find ways to rank faster than what I would naturally do. I keep in the back of my mind at all times, “if the owner of this website didn’t know anything about SEO, what would this website do for Google to like it?”

And most of this comes down to the components of EEAT, which is a quality and ranking indicator used by Google that stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust. It’s important that Google perceives your website as an authority in its industry, where it’s clear who is behind the website, how to contact the owners of the website, and to be able to validate the credibility of the information shared on the website. Obviously, this is something that could, and should be manipulated or fabricated, as this is especially important when we are in such a sensitive YMYL (Your money, your life) niche such as online gambling.

When most people think about EEAT, they think about everything displayed on the website. However, this is just the mere essentials. EEAT should be built with an off-page focus. This is where branding comes in. If you can create a strong brand and a lot of internet mentions around your website, this is going to heavily favor you in the search results. To this day, I still believe that backlinks are the ultimate key to higher rankings.

When I started out, everything was all about highly targeted keywords. Although I do believe that keywords are the way we are signaling to Google where we want them to rank us, the sophistication of Google’s algorithm has taken us past a very narrow view on how to utilize keywords to a much more semantic take on keywords and entities. Building a strong topical authority throughout our whole website has become a bigger focus of mine.

What is your philosophy on creating engaging and valuable content for iGaming audiences, and how do you ensure it converts?
My philosophy is that the content on our websites is not at all intended for the users, but for the algorithms only. I cannot imagine visitors who are looking for new online casinos to play at are going to read our 3,000-word article about how to sign up to a casino. But my content approach is very straightforward, it’s built on replicating the top-ranking websites on any given query.

This is where the AI advancements come into play very effectively. Now, we do not really need to do any manual competitor analysis, we can simply let tools like ChatGPT do our content gap and competitor analysis for us.

What was the primary motivation behind creating CasinoAffMastery? What gap in the market were you hoping to fill with your course?
I’ve always liked to create communities. Even in law school, I saw a need for a place where new students could get help from more experienced students. This led me to create a Facebook group for law students in Sweden that is to this day used by most law students.

But the idea of CasinoAffMastery, or specifically the course inside of the community, came from a friend of mine. As he was just starting out with casino affiliation, he had some basic questions for me about how to set up his hosting etc. I simply created some screenshare videos that I sent to him explaining the different steps to get everything set up, and from that, he suggested that I should create a course for people who wanted to become casino affiliate marketers.

From that, I mapped out a complete course in casino affiliate marketing, consisting of about 50 videos on the topics of SEO, website creation, the casino affiliate industry, and how to run your business. But as I launched my course, I realized that there was no traction at all. No one was simply interested in buying a course from someone they didn’t know. And even though a couple of people actually bought the course initially, I had no real way of interacting with them through the old LMS I was using.

That’s when I met a good friend of mine here in Bali, who told me about Skool.com, an interactive platform where you could host a community where members can both participate in learning material and also interact with each other. I thought this concept was brilliant, so I migrated my course over to Skool.com.

The community has now been active for almost a whole year, with over 100 active members. It’s so fun to see how people inside the community keep supporting each other and sharing their journeys.

Before I launched my YouTube channel, information on how to get started with casino affiliate marketing was basically non-existent, and it feels good to be able to provide this opportunity for people!

Who is the ideal student for CasinoAffMastery, and what can they realistically expect to achieve by completing your course?
For me, the number of members inside CasinoAffMastery is not at all as important as the quality of the members. Like I mentioned earlier, this is not a “get-rich-quick scheme,” and I have been doing my best in order to manage people's expectations before joining. That’s why I am using long-form content on YouTube as my only traffic funnel for the community.

The people who eventually decide to join have most probably already heard me talking on YouTube for at least a couple of hours in total, so the trust has already been built. At the point of joining the community, they have a basic understanding of the process, the expectations, as well as an understanding of my own philosophies and values. I could double down on paid advertisement or short-form content on other platforms such as Instagram or even TikTok, in order to try to grab the attention of the people who are more interested in the “Make 10k/mo. in 7 days” marketing. But in my opinion, that would lower the quality of members' interaction, and also most probably attract more unsatisfied members with unreasonable expectations.

The goal is not to create an army of franchised white-labelled casino affiliate websites, but to teach people how to get creative in the process as well.

For someone considering entering the iGaming affiliate marketing space today, what would be your top piece of advice, based on your experience?
For someone considering entering the iGaming affiliate marketing space, my best advice would be to actually get started. The barrier to entry is a lot lower than what most people might think. Of course, at one point there are investments that need to be made – but buying a domain, getting a hosting plan, and setting up a website will not cost you that much money.

Another good piece of advice that goes great with this is something that I’ve already mentioned. A beautiful website will not make you money; an optimized website that loads fast, is easy to navigate, and responsive for mobile users will. Don’t get stuck in the “launching” phase for too long. Only by launching your website can you start learning from your mistakes, but also start understanding the impact of the things you are doing correctly.

Do you gamble?
I do not gamble at all. Even before entering this space, it was just not something I was interested in. I do not take any moral stance on gambling, as I am quite liberal in the sense that people are free to make their own choices in how they want to spend their time and money.

Most people see gambling as just a way to hopefully end up with more money than what they started with, but I do understand the aspect of seeing gambling as entertainment as well. It’s not like we can go to an amusement park and ride roller coasters for free, and in that case you definitely cannot end up with more money than what you paid for the ride.

How do you recharge and find balance outside of your demanding professional life? Are there any personal hobbies or interests you'd like to share with our readers?
I find it quite hard to find balance outside of work. My phone is with me all the time, and I constantly have people writing to me, be it the affiliate managers on Skype, someone from the internal team on Slack, or one of the community members inside of CasinoAffMastery.

Even though I don’t really do eight hours of intensive work every day, it’s always there in the back of my mind. I do enjoy it, but it’s hard to completely shut off sometimes.

Some of the moments where I can completely unwind are when I’m away from my phone. I love to treat myself to an hour of massage, which also gives me some time away from my phone. My girlfriend and I are trying to make it a tradition to go down to the beach at sunset. Sometimes I just go in the water, and sometimes I surf for an hour.

I spend a lot of time learning the Indonesian language as well, which I’ve really come to appreciate. I’m at a stage where I can pick up a book and read through it (although quite slowly), so that is something I’m trying to do as often as I can.

If a fellow iGaming aficionado had just 24 hours to experience your city, where would you take them to capture the essence of your local culture and hotspots?
Bali is such an interesting place to be. You have a complete mix of the local lifestyle, a huge party scene, and big expat communities. I’ve slowed down quite a bit on the partying since I got here, but I would for sure still bring someone to one of the famous beach clubs that we have here. Since my girlfriend is from Indonesia, we have also been trying out a lot of the local food places, which I’ve come to appreciate a lot. So for sure we’d go to one of the warungs (local restaurants) to eat some nasi campur.

Taking the bike inland to places such as Ubud, Sidemen, or Kintamani will also showcase some of Bali’s beautiful scenery, such as huge rice fields, waterfalls, and local villages.

The more touristy areas of Bali, such as Canggu, Seminyak, and Uluwatu, are full of high-quality restaurants that serve both Indonesian and Western food. So it’d probably be a visit to one of these after drinking a couple of coconuts on the beach during sunset.

List three things that people reading this magazine don't know about you.
1. I had a huge fascination of solving Rubik’s cubes growing up, so I got into something called “speed cubing.” Although I am not able to do it as fast anymore, I have been able to solve a Rubik’s cube in about 10 seconds.

2. In 2014, I participated in the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest.

3. I have another YouTube channel solely dedicated to posting fingerstyle guitar arrangements of famous songs.

[GPWA Nicole]

I love Adams story and I am sure many of us can relate! I am inspired to keep trying.

[newcustomeroffer]

I have been able to solve a Rubik’s cube in about 10 seconds.

Very impressive that - I got down to about 45 seconds when I was younger, never even remotely close to 10 seconds though!

[NoDepositCasinos]

Awesome interview, one of my favourites so far. This part sums up what I think everyone working in SEO should always keep in mind:

The biggest immediate obstacle I believe you’ll be facing, especially when using SEO as a means of lead generation, is delayed gratification. It’s not going to happen fast, and it’s not going to be a straight path, but if you give up, it will never happen.

I'd recommend it to anyone starting or thinking about getting into this business.