Three markets that moved the numbers
Three regulated markets outside Europe and the United States have reshaped affiliate economics in the last few years, each in a different way. Brazil regulated a huge grey market and, in doing so, removed the bonus from the affiliate's toolkit; in September 2026 it went further and prohibited fixed-odds betting altogether. Ontario opened Canada's first commercial market with an advertising standard that forbids public inducements. Australia, a mature market with a large affiliate channel, passed a reform in August 2026 that bans wagering advertising in live sport, bars influencers from promoting betting and bans affiliate commissions based on customer activity. This lesson covers each, because between them they show where affiliate regulation is going.
Brazil
Brazil's federal regime for fixed-odds betting and online casino opened on 1 January 2025, from which date only authorised operators, on ".bet.br" domains, could operate, under the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA) of the Ministry of Finance, and the advertising rules arrived with it and tightened until Provisional Measure 1.394 of 25 September 2026 prohibited fixed-odds betting, and its advertising, altogether, with licensed sites offline from 6 October 2026. The measure lapses unless Congress converts it into law, by 23 November 2026 unless the deadline is extended once, so what follows describes the rules as they applied from 2025 to September 2026.
The bonus prohibition. Brazilian law prohibited operators from granting any advance, bonus or prior advantage for placing a bet, even as a promotion (Law 14.790/2023, article 29), and the SPA's ordinances repeated the ban, so bonuses, free bets and similar advantages could not be used as an inducement to register or bet. The affiliate industry's primary conversion mechanism, the welcome-offer comparison, did not exist in regulated Brazil. Better Collective, a listed affiliate and sports media group, guided investors to a 50 to 70% short-term fall in its Brazilian revenue-share income from the regulated launch, citing tax, added costs and customer churn, and in its third-quarter 2025 report said that the prohibition of welcome bonuses had redirected many new players to offshore sportsbooks. An affiliate in regulated Brazil competed on odds, product, payment methods and content rather than on offers.
Advertising rules. The ministry's ordinances require every betting advertisement to carry an 18+ warning and, since 17 July 2026, one of three mandatory warnings, each introduced by "Ministério da Fazenda adverte" (the Ministry of Finance warns): "Apostar pode causar dependência" (betting can cause addiction), "Apostar faz você perder dinheiro" (betting makes you lose money) or "Aposta não é investimento" (betting is not an investment), set horizontally, clear and legible, and occupying at least a tenth of the advertisement. They prohibit suggestions of easy winnings, calls to action suggesting immediate betting, and presenting betting as a source of income or a way to recover losses. A July 2026 interministerial ordinance adds that betting advertising is abusive if it carries affiliate links or promotional codes for unauthorised operators, places betting tips or strategies alongside editorial content in a way that induces a bet, or displays winning bets, and it requires app stores to keep betting apps, and apps without age verification, away from children's accounts and social networks to keep betting advertising away from them. These rules apply to affiliate content as advertising, and licensed operators are jointly liable for their affiliates' advertising and must have written contracts with them in Portuguese.
Influencers. Influencer promotion was a large part of Brazil's betting boom before regulation, and the regime's rules (no easy-money messaging, no betting tips placed to induce a bet, age controls on platforms) were aimed at exactly that channel. The law required advertising platforms, including internet application providers, to remove irregular campaigns once the ministry notifies them, and from 2026 it was an infraction to promote an unauthorised operator, including through influencers or content producers, once its irregular status was known.
Unlicensed promotion. With licensing in force, promotion of unlicensed operators to Brazilians was illegal, the SPA has, according to its secretary in August 2026, ordered the blocking of more than 60,000 websites linked to illegal betting since the regime began, and the payment rules (deposits only by Pix, TED, debit or prepaid card from an account the bettor has registered, with cash, boletos, credit cards and crypto-assets banned) made the licensed and unlicensed products visibly different. An affiliate that built a Brazilian audience on grey-market operators has a compliance history to explain to the licensed ones. Under the provisional measure, promoting any fixed-odds betting to people in Brazil is prohibited.
What works. Affiliates that did well in regulated Brazil were local-language media businesses: sports content, odds comparison, statistics, payment and product guides, and the reference content a regulating market needs. The comparison-and-bonus model did not travel there.
Ontario
Ontario opened its regulated online market in April 2022 under the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), with iGaming Ontario as the conduct-and-manage entity, and it is the model the other Canadian provinces are watching; Alberta followed, launching its own regulated market on 13 July 2026.
No public inducements. The AGCO's Registrar's Standard 2.05 prohibits advertising and marketing that communicates gambling inducements, bonuses and credits except on an operator's gaming site and through direct marketing after active player consent; the accompanying guidance says this covers all public advertising, including targeted and algorithm-based ads. An affiliate page in Ontario cannot display a welcome bonus. This single standard reshaped the Canadian affiliate channel at launch: comparison sites had to become odds, product and content sites, and the affiliates that had built Ontario audiences on bonus content in the grey market had to rebuild.
Affiliates within the standards. Operators are responsible for the actions of third parties they contract with, which must conduct themselves as if bound by the same laws and standards (Standard 1.19), and are accountable for affiliate compliance with the standards on inducements, on content (no targeting of minors or high-risk individuals, no misleading claims, responsible gambling messaging) and on the prohibition of promoting unregistered operators to Ontarians (Standard 1.21).
Athletes and celebrities. Since 28 February 2024 the standards prohibit the use of active or retired athletes in igaming advertising, except to advocate responsible gambling, and restrict celebrities, role models, social media influencers and entertainers likely to appeal to minors. The rule reaches affiliate and influencer content.
The grey market. Ontario's regulation was designed to bring the existing grey market inside, and a site that did not join the regulated market is unregulated; affiliates that continued to promote operators that did not register found themselves outside the channel. Ontario and now Alberta have regulated private markets; in the rest of the country, where the Criminal Code lets only a provincial government conduct and manage a lottery scheme operated on or through a computer and the provincial lottery corporation is the only legal online operator, an affiliate promoting private sites is promoting operators the province has not authorised.
Australia
Australia's online market is mature (sports betting and racing are licensed; online casino is prohibited under the Interactive Gambling Act), its affiliate channel has been large, and its regulation of gambling advertising has been the subject of a national argument for years. On 19 August 2026 Parliament passed the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, which received assent on 26 August as Act No. 72 of 2026; most of it commences on 1 January 2027, and it is enforced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
Advertising in live sport. Wagering advertising is banned during live coverage of sporting events on broadcast and online services: between 5am and 8.30pm the ban runs from 15 minutes before an event to five minutes after it, and overnight it covers the live coverage itself, and television is limited to three wagering ads an hour between 5am and 8.30pm. It is banned inside sports venues and on players' and officials' uniforms.
Athletes, celebrities and influencers may no longer promote wagering: licensed wagering providers may not use a "notable person" to promote wagering, and the Act defines a notable person to include a current or former athlete, celebrity, social media influencer or prominent individual. Alongside it, the reform bans commissions to staff or affiliates based on customer activity, and the Act defines a commission to include a referral fee, revenue share, profit share or performance payment, which goes to the heart of revenue-share and per-customer commission models; the detail will matter once ACMA publishes its guidance. These are the rules that reach the affiliate and creator channel most directly, and together they are among the clearest statements by any major market that creator promotion of betting is over.
A national opt-out register lets Australians opt out of wagering advertising across all their services in one place, with its costs recovered from wagering companies through a levy, alongside the national self-exclusion register, BetStop, which excludes a person from all Australian licensed online and phone wagering services in a single step. The reform also restricts the direct marketing of inducements to new account holders for their first 14 days, to people who left BetStop in the last three months and to customers identified as at risk.
Unlicensed promotion. The Interactive Gambling Act prohibits providing or advertising prohibited interactive gambling services (online casino, online in-play sports betting, and betting services without an Australian licence) to Australians, and ACMA asks internet service providers to block sites that offer these services or publish ads for them, which catches affiliate sites as well as offshore operators. Australia's affiliate compliance has always been about staying within the licensed wagering product; from 2027 it is also about staying out of live sport and away from influencers.
What the three have in common
The bonus is going. Brazil prohibited it (and from September 2026 the betting itself), Ontario keeps it off public channels, and Australia, from 2027, restricts the direct marketing of inducements to new, returning and at-risk customers. An affiliate model that depends on bonus comparison is not exportable to the newest regulated markets.
Influencers are named in the rules. Each market has written influencer restrictions into its standards or its statute. The channel that grew fastest in recent years is the one regulators most want to control.
Operator responsibility with direct intervention. All three hold operators responsible for affiliates and all three regulators act directly: Brazil's SPA on platforms and domains, the AGCO on standards breaches, ACMA on prohibited services and, from 2027, on advertising.
Content, not offers, is the product. In all three, the affiliates that have adapted sell audience and information rather than sign-up incentives, which is the direction lesson one of the Building an iGaming Affiliate Business course describes for the industry as a whole.
What to take from this lesson
Brazil removed the bonus and required mandatory loss and addiction warnings, no easy-money messaging and controls on influencers and tipsters until it prohibited fixed-odds betting in September 2026, and Better Collective guided to a short-term fall of 50 to 70% in its Brazilian revenue-share income. Ontario forbids public inducements and the use of athletes and of celebrities likely to appeal to minors, and holds operators to the standards for their affiliates. Australia bans wagering advertising in live sport and bars athletes, celebrities and influencers from promoting betting from 2027, with a national opt-out register and a ban on affiliate commissions based on customer activity. The newest regulated markets are built without the affiliate's traditional conversion tool, and the affiliates that thrive in them are media businesses.