GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 43 - February 2019

This issue’s webmasters come to us from all around the globe, from the U.K. to New Zealand, and — well, that covers most of the planet’s habitable surface, doesn’t it? We catch up with two old hands in the industry who we’d previously interviewed back in the early days of the GPWA, and discuss the challenges of entering the market at the current moment with a webmaster who’s just recently gotten back into the game. While their experiences have been very different, all three are happy to share their hard-earned wisdom with the rest of the affiliate community. * We could not print the interviews in their entirety. The complete text will be posted on the GPWA forums. GPWA AFFILIATE INTERVIEW SERIES FromEnglish casino weathers the industry’s changeswith serenity this veteran affiliate to Russian sports betting, Aksana Radaman - Aksana What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry since we last interviewed you 10 years ago? How have they impacted your business? There have been several big changes. Online gambling has moved to mobile, and it has become legalized in many countries. Google algorithms have become stronger, and the online gambling industry is more competitive. Ten years ago, I could manage my casino website alone without any help and al- most without any SEO knowledge. Today, that would be almost impossible. Of course, these changes have impact- ed my business. After eight years I had to close my first casino website and all my other casino sites. I had to leave the international market and enter the Rus- sian-language market, and I started my first sports betting website for the Rus- sian-language market. What advice would you give to a new iGaming affiliate just getting started in the business? Believe in your success and you will achieve it. But sometimes, it’s very difficult to have such strong faith in yourself. That’s how I felt when I started my business, but my faith in God was very strong, and now even I can’t understand how I achieved such success in my business. I can only thank God. What is it like running Russian-lan- guage sites? How has it been different than running English-language sites? I had the idea to launch a Russian-language casino website 10 years ago, and I launched it in 2008-2009. It was one of the popular casino sites in the Russianmarket. Several years ago I had to close it due to the Russian government’s bans, and I started a Russian sports betting site. Running a Russian-language site is much easier, because Russian is my native lan- guage. When I launched my first site in the Russian-language market, the online gambling industry there was not competi- tive and it was very easy to be in the top five in search engines, but there also were not Gambling Banner image by welcomia/Shutterstock; Earth image by By adike/Shutterstock G P W A t i m e s . o r g 52