Best Poker Affiliate programs to join and make money with

Poker affiliate programs can be a good source of income if you own a gambling-related site or even mailing list filled with people interested in gambling. What are the best poker affiliate programs out there?

Updated: Dec 23 2020

Start making money promoting online poker rooms

If you are interested in gambling and poker in particular, joining a poker affiliate program can become a good source of extra income for you.

What is a poker affiliate program?

Poker affiliate programs are partnership programs between a business owner (in this case poker room) and a marketer (this case you) where online poker site pays affiliate websites a commission for promoting them.

Most commonly the affiliates are paid a percentage of the revenue generated by the depositing players. Or it can also be a fixed amount for each and every registering player.

So if you own a poker, or just gambling-related website, you can join such affiliate programs and start earning money with them.

What is a good poker affiliate program?

There's a great number of different poker affiliate programs out there, offering you the chance to promote them and earn by doing that.

But as a person thinking about becoming a poker affiliate, what should you consider when choosing a poker affiliate program to join and promote?

A good affiliate program offers enough for everyone involved - the poker room or poker site itself, the affiliate (you) and also the players you're sending to the online poker room through your website.

Before we continue looking at what makes one poker room or poker affiliate program better than the other, here are some of the best poker affiliate programs to join:

Great poker software and good enough player pool

Obviously you want to promote good poker rooms.

You want the poker room you're promoting to actually be good to play in.

It's always better and easier to promote poker sites that you actually like yourself as well.

So before promoting any poker site, we recommend you to check out their poker software yourself as well.

To see how's the client interface, how the tables look like, how's the gameplay. How many different cash tables they have, how many tournaments they have running every day and how big is the variety in all.

It would always be nice to see No Limit Hold'em, Pot Limit Omaha, PLO8 and preferably a number of other poker variations as well.

You also want to see enough players in the poker room at all times. What's a good number, that's always a good question, but a few thousand at any given moment might already be a pretty good sign.

As a poker affiliate you want the poker room to have enough players, but at the same time it's good if it's not very popular yet either. The latter makes it easier to promote it to new players.

Easy to register for you and your players

We value simplicity. In everything.

So we love to find poker affiliate programs that are easy to join.

If you need to go through dozens of hurdles before you can even try and see if you are even able to send the poker platform any players, for us that's already very annoying.

It's understandable if you need to fill in some extra forms later on, but some poker programs want too much too soon, info from you even before getting started.

And we don't want that.

A good poker affiliate program is easy. It's simple. It's clear.

What's more, you want the poker room you're promoting to be easy for players to sign up as well.

Sign-up process is important whether you're an affiliate or a player.

There's nothing without trust

New poker rooms can be inviting and in a sense they might be easier to promote.

But at the same time, especially with newcomers, you need do enough homework to make sure that these poker affiliate programs and the poker rooms are actually legit.

This is important both for you and for your players.

For you, because you don't want to promote anything that might be bad for the players you're sending their way. And if the program is not legit, you might not get paid for your hard work either.

And for your players to have the confidence to sign up there and actually have good experience there.

Good commission

Good commission is a must when it comes to becoming a poker room affiliate. You're not doing it for fun. Well, maybe you are. But even then, not only.

You're doing it for money. So you want the affiliation to actually pay well.

How do you earn commission?

In poker all players pay rake when playing.

Certain amount of rake is taken from each poker hand players play in cash tables. And same goes for poker tournaments - players also pay roughly a 10% fee to the casino as rake from every tournament buy-in.

And from that revenue casino is earning from the players, a certain amount is paid to you.

How much, that depends on the what kind of deal you have with the poker affiliate program and also how many players you're able to send them.

In general there are two main ways poker affiliate programs might pay you:

Revenue Share programs
In most cases revenue share deals are the best.

Depending on the affiliate program, initially you start at anywhere from 10%-25% revenue share. This means that 10-25% of the rake generated by the players you send to the poker site is paid to you.

As you send them more players, your revenue share percentage might soon go up to 30%, 40% or even 60% in some cases.

CPA - Cost Per Acquisition program
Another option some poker affiliates offer you is to choose a CPA option instead of the lifetime revenue option.

With CPA you normally get a one-time flat payment. How big it is depends on the affiliate program and again also the number of players you're able to send the poker room.

However, while CPA might be fast money in some ways, the amount paid with CPA generally gives the affiliate less than an affiliate would earn through revenue share deal.

And these days poker affiliate programs are not very interested in offering CPA deals due to fraud issues.

Good for the players

As we already mentioned, you want the poker room you're promoting to actually be good. You want the potential players you send their way to actually like it and sign up.

So good interface. Nice looking tables. Good payment options. Trustworthy.

And of course, you also want your players to get a nice sign-up bonus for becoming a player there. Or you want the poker room to have a really great loyalty program.

Or both.

You want your players to like the poker room you're promoting.

Difference between a poker affiliate and a casino affiliate program

In general, there are two main differences between poker and casino affiliate programs.

Firstly, we need to be honest here, casino affiliate programs pay more. At least one average.

One online poker player earns you less on average than one online casino player.

Secondly, the money you're paid with as an affiliate is the major difference between poker and casino affiliates.

If you don't like the idea of gambling affiliation because you don't want to win from anyone's losses, then being a poker affiliate could still be for you. How?

Casino affiliates only earn money when their players lose.

Poker affiliates don't depend on anyone's losses.

And it doesn't depend on their wins either. Actually you just want your players to be good enough to play long and pay rake by doing that.

As a poker affiliate your perfect player is the man or woman, who plays for a long time without losing their money.

You want them to last.

Because each and every next hand they play in cash tables and each poker tournament they buy into, gives you more commission.

Why join a poker affiliate program?

The most obvious reason is simple - to earn money. If you already have a website related to poker or gambling, becoming a poker affiliate can earn you some good money.

And you don't have to be an affiliate for just one poker room - you can promote as many poker rooms as you like.

If you manage to get enough people to register through your poker affiliate links, poker affiliation can become a very lucrative and flexible job for you.

How much can you earn as a poker affiliate?

Nobody can tell you how much you will earn as a poker affiliate. It depends on a number of factors.

  The poker affiliate program and your percentage
How many players you are able to send to the poker rooms every month
How often and what limits do the players play
How good are the players - the better they are, the longer they play, the more you earn

Every player that registers an account through your affiliate link also need to make a deposit and play at least a bit for you to be able to cash in at least something.

Some players might not be worth even a buck for you.

But then again, some okayish players who play 0.25/0.50 cash tables daily might earn you 10-50 bucks each and every day.

So it is really impossible to say how much you will earn.

But there is some good potential.

Targeting matters

One thing we should mention when it comes to affiliate programs of any kind - targeting matters.

If you have a website which has enough traffic, but it is not focused on anything or at least not anything poker or gambling-related, you might be able to send the poker room a lot of clicks, but yet not generate any sign-ups at all.

We've been there. Hundreds of thousands of visitors to your website, thousands of clicks to the affiliate program and if you're lucky, one sign-up.

It's sad but true.

Then again, if you have a website very focused on poker, or gambling, or something very related to the topics, then each new visitor to your website is a potential player.

Simply because they wouldn't have ended up on your website if they weren't looking for something related to what you're offering.

How to get started as a poker affiliate?

You don't have to know a thing to become a poker affiliate and start making money.

It's not as simple as it could be, but when we say that anyone can do it, we're not lying.

However you're doing it - if you manage to send the poker room players who sign up and actually start playing, that's all you need.

What do you need to do to become a poker affiliate:
  • Find the best poker affiliate programs with poker rooms that you'd like to promote
  • Join the affiliate programs
  • Decide how you want to promote the program
    • You can do it through your website
    • You can do it through your mailing list
    • You can do it through word of mouth if you want, just make sure the people signing up are using your affiliate link or promo code.

Become a poker affiliate

Check out the poker rooms and poker affiliate programs below to get started.

Jay Gory
Jay Gory
Jay has been poker online for nearly two decades and is now sharing his knowledge on Best Poker Affiliates as well as on cheerscasinos.com.



FAQ - things to remember

What is a poker affiliate program?
Poker affiliate program offers individuals and companies the chance to earn money by sending new players to the poker room. Affiliates are then paid based on how much rake their players generate.
Who is a poker affiliate?
Poker affiliate is someone trying to promote a poker site that he or she doesn't own. Poker affiliate gets paid for sending players to the poker site through their unique affiliate links.
How much can you earn as a poker affiliate?
Poker affiliate programs normally pay you around 20-40% commission from all rake generated by your players. What it means in numbers really depends. If you're lucky, just one player might earn you hundreds or even thousands of dollars each and every day. Then again, some players might not be worth to you even $1 during the lifetime of their account.


Poker Affiliate Programs

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