Three markets that moved the numbers
Three regulated markets outside Europe and the United States have reshaped affiliate economics in the last three years, each in a different way. Brazil regulated a huge grey market and, in doing so, removed the bonus from the affiliate's toolkit. 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 2026 that bans wagering advertising in live sport and bars influencers from promoting betting. 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 under the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA) of the Ministry of Finance, and the advertising rules arrived with it and have tightened since.
The bonus prohibition. Brazilian law and the SPA's ordinances prohibit the offer of bonuses, free bets and similar advantages as an inducement to register or bet. The affiliate industry's primary conversion mechanism, the welcome-offer comparison, does not exist in Brazil. The largest listed affiliates reported that their Brazilian revenue-share income and new-customer volumes fell sharply after the regulated launch for this reason, and their guidance to investors named it as a material negative. An affiliate entering Brazil competes on odds, product, payment methods and content rather than on offers.
Advertising rules. The ministry's ordinances require every betting advertisement to carry an approved financial-loss warning ("Betting leads to financial loss" and similar wording), set horizontally, occupying at least a tenth of the advertisement's space, clear and legible. They prohibit urgency and immediate-action calls, references to easy winnings or to betting as a source of income, the use of historical payout data to encourage betting, and influencers presenting betting strategies as the best or safest. Social media platforms and app stores must block under-age access to betting content lacking age verification. These rules apply to affiliate content as advertising, and licensed operators are responsible for their affiliates' compliance with them.
Influencers. Brazil's betting boom was driven by influencer promotion to a degree unmatched elsewhere, and the regime's rules on influencers (no presenting strategies as safe, no easy-money messaging, age controls on platforms) are aimed at exactly that channel. Licensed operators have publicly pressed the platforms to act against influencers promoting unlicensed operators, and the SPA has coordinated with platforms on takedowns.
Unlicensed promotion. With licensing in force, promotion of unlicensed operators to Brazilians is illegal, the SPA has ordered blocks on thousands of domains, and the payment rules (deposits only through the national instant scheme and bank transfer from accounts in the customer's name) make 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.
What works. Affiliates that have done well in regulated Brazil are 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 does 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 and Alberta has followed.
No public inducements. The AGCO's Registrar's Standards prohibit advertising or marketing gambling inducements, bonuses and credits except on an operator's own site or app or through direct marketing to customers who have opted in. 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 marketing conducted on their behalf, must have agreements with affiliates, 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.
Athletes and celebrities. Since February 2024 the standards prohibit the use of athletes, and of celebrities and figures likely to appeal to minors, in gambling advertising, except for responsible gambling messaging. The rule reaches affiliate and influencer content.
The grey market. Ontario's regulation was designed to bring the existing grey market inside, and operators were given a window to migrate; affiliates that continued to promote operators that did not register found themselves outside the channel. Ontario, unlike most of Canada's monopoly provinces, has a licensed affiliate channel; the rest of the country, where only the provincial lottery corporations may operate, treats affiliate promotion of anyone else as promotion of illegal gambling.
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 a decade. In August 2026 Parliament passed the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, which commences on 1 January 2027 and 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, from 15 minutes before an event to five minutes after, 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. This is the rule that reaches the affiliate and creator channel most directly, and it is the clearest statement by any major market that creator promotion of betting is over.
A national opt-out register lets Australians switch off wagering advertising across every online service through a single register, funded by a cost-recovery levy on the industry, alongside the national self-exclusion register, BetStop, which affiliates may not help customers circumvent.
Unlicensed promotion. The Interactive Gambling Act prohibits providing or advertising prohibited interactive gambling services (online casino, in-play betting by some routes, and any service by an operator not licensed in Australia) to Australians, and ACMA blocks offshore sites and pursues affiliates that promote them. 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 prohibits it, Ontario keeps it off public channels, and Australia's inducement rules already restricted it. 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 the last five 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 requires loss warnings, no easy-money messaging and controls on influencers, cutting affiliate revenue-share income at the largest groups. Ontario forbids public inducements and the use of athletes and celebrities, 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. The newest regulated markets are built without the affiliate's traditional conversion tool, and the affiliates that thrive in them are media businesses.