In the recent episode of the iGaming Accent podcast, host Vakho Mdivani welcomes Michael Filletti, co-founder of Routy, for an in-depth conversation about the world of iGaming affiliation. Michael, with a background in math, statistics, and data analysis, brings both technical expertise and practical experience to the discussion.
He explains that his journey into iGaming began on the affiliate side, where he quickly encountered the industry’s notorious complexity. “Affiliation is all about being essentially the middleman… He’s responsible for putting a product in front of a consumer.”
Michael says, breaking down the core concept. He illustrates this with a simple example: “You have a website where you promote bonuses, people come to your website because you write good articles about football, for example, and on your website, you’ll have a link to bet365, for example… You get rewarded because you send a player to the operator.”
The conversation soon turns to the challenges of tracking and attribution. Michael is candid about the trust issues that persist between affiliates and operators. This lack of transparency, he explains, often leads affiliates to favor established brands over newcomers, even if the latter offer more lucrative deals.
“Old brands… you know how they work, you know you can trust them. New guys just show up, you don’t know if they can pay you at the end of the month. There’s always a risk… but if they pay you, it can be amazing for you because you can get way more people in there.”
When it comes to data, Michael emphasizes that affiliates must focus on the basics: “The first thing that they want to know data-wise: how many FTDs do I have and how much money am I making. That’s the most basic and important thing… The big challenge is that you don’t own the most relevant data. Ultimately, clicks don’t pay bills, you want to understand: how much money am I making, where is it coming from?”
He warns that having too much data is useless if you don’t know how to use it: “We have a lot of data, we give that data to affiliates, they’re almost overwhelmed with it, and they don’t know what to do with it… There’s a big difference between having a lot of data and knowing how to use it.”
He also observes that the affiliate landscape is changing, with affiliates diversifying their traffic sources and using multiple channels: “We’re seeing affiliates kind of hedging a bit. They do a bit of PPC, a bit of email to diversify… as a business, you need to diversify to make yourself stronger.”
When asked about the future, Michael is realistic, admitting that “predicting the next five years would be foolish of me.”
He points out that there is “an obvious shift in how consumers behave… even web browsing is being substituted little by little.” He emphasizes that affiliation will need to adapt and “figure out how to get into those sources and be where the customers will be.”
This uncertainty about the future is heightened by the rapid development of AI, which Michael finds both fascinating and unsettling:
“What I didn’t expect was how fast it moved… I remember this project where an AI learned to play Breakout, and after a few hours, it figured out a trick. The developers just didn’t expect this; they thought he would just play. That, for me, is the scary thing about AI.”
He also responded to a question from a previous guest, Megabet Plus’ Nick Laconico, and posed one of his own for the next guest.
To hear the full conversation and gain even deeper insights, listen to the complete podcast episode of iGaming Accent.
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