TopRanked.io Weekly Affiliate Digest: What’s Hot in Affiliate Marketing [Bovada Affiliate Program]

Quick Disclosure: We’re about to tell you the Bovada Affiliate Program is pretty great. And we really mean it. Just know that if you click on a Bovada Affiliate Program link, we may earn a small commission. Your choice.

Hey there affiliates.

This week, we’re going to talk about this (text-based gaming).

And this.

Why?

Because there’s money to be made if you mash the two together. That’s why.

TopRanked.io Partner Program of the Week — Bovada Affiliate Program [2026 Update]

Before we get to this week’s big affiliate opportunity, let’s take a moment to look at one of the best affiliate programs you can monetize with right now.

The Bovada Affiliate Program.

Here’s what makes the Bovada Affiliate Program so good.

Bovada Affiliate Program — The Product

Alright. First things first — what’s the Bovada Affiliate Program even about?

The answer to that is simple — gaming. Specifically, the holy trinity of real-money gaming.

Sportsbook. Casino. Poker.

That’s what the Bovada Affiliate Program is all about.

And the best part is, with the Bovada Affiliate Program, you can also target US residents in a bunch of different states, which is a huge upgrade from many of the other iGaming/sportsbook programs out there that are either off limits in the US, or have patchy coverage at best.

As for how each of the products within the Bovada Affiliate Program actually stack up… well, there’s not much to say here.

The casino’s solid — plenty of games from top designers.

The sportsbook has broad coverage, great promotions, and competitive odds.

And as for the poker side of the Bovada Affiliate Program… well… poker’s poker (unless you’re targeting one of the 0.00001% of people who want something “more” like VR poker…).

In short, the Bovada Affiliate Program provides a solid real-money gaming experience that’s sure to convert and retain.

So with that out of the way, let’s talke Bovada Affiliate Program commissions.

Bovada Affiliate Program — The Commissions

Commissions in the Bovada Affiliate Program are exactly how we like them — generous and recurring.

As you might expect, the default plan in the Bovada Affiliate Program is, of course, a nice little rev share offering. Here’s how that looks on paper:

Tier Name	Revenue Range	Commission
Starter	$0-$10,000	25%
All-Star	$10,000.01 → $40,000	30%
Baller	$40,000.01 → $50,000	35%
Champion (Casino Only)	$50,000.01+	45%

Now, in case you missed the little note in brackets in the table, that top commission rate of 45% is only available on casino revenue — the Bovada Affiliate Program’s commission on sportsbook revenue tops out at 35%.

But that’s more or less par for the course — most iGaming/sportsbook affiliate programs have similar splits.

As for what’s not par for the course, while some other programs kneecap sportsbook commissions at lower revenue levels, the Bovada Affiliate Program gives you a generous sportsbook commission right from the get go.

And just in case you’re still not a fan of those commissions… well, there’s always the option to reach out to your Bovada Affiliate Program manager and ask for a custom plan. With CPA deals also on the table, you might be able to come to an arrangement that suits you better.

Bovada Affiliate Program — Next Steps

That’s enough about the Bovada Affiliate Program for now. If you want more details, then head on over to TopRanked.io for our in-depth Bovada Affiliate Program review.

Bovada Affiliate Program : BTC Commissions up to 45%

Or, if you know a good thing when you see it, head here to sign up with the Bovada Affiliate Program today.

Affiliate News Takeaways

Rumor has it, TikTok’s getting into gaming.

And no, I don’t mean TikTok saw Twitch and suddenly decided it wanted to pull off one of those pro moves where one app copies features from another app.

TikTok is literally publishing games. And, believe it or not, that represents a serious affiliate opportunity.

So, before we get to the actual opportunity, let’s back up a second and actually take a look at what TikTok’s actually doing.

After all, as they say, the devil is in the details.

According to TechCrunch:

• TikTok “quietly added a secret emoji game that you can access in your DMs.”
• The game “can be accessed in both one-on-one DMs and in group chats.”
• You play the game against an opponent (presumably whoever’s in that particular chat…)

And here’s what the game itself actually looks like:

Oh, and apparently Threads is also experimenting with in-chat games… but I somehow missed that news when it came out (3 months ago) until TechCrunch mentioned it in the TikTok story.

So I guess we can scratch that bit about TikTok not doing that whole app-copy-app thing I mentioned before. Guess even TikTok’s on that bandwagon now.

In any case, regardless of who’s copying who, there’s obviously something going on here. And obviously, if you ask any of these companies directly what exactly’s going on, you’re going to get some canned response of about “delighting users” or “making the world a better place”.

Okay, so maybe tech moved on from using those exact words a few years ago. But TikTok’s answer to “why” is basically the same thing.

In TikTok’s specific case, they told TechCrunch they “launched this Easter egg to make messaging more fun and to add a playful element of competition to DMs.”

Cool story… but that still doesn’t tell me why they’re bothering to develop games in DMs specifically.

I want data.

So data. What do we have?

Sadly, there’s not much here aside from what we can glean from company reports and scattered fragments we can piece together from elsewhere.

So let’s start with a couple of reports from the company that first started experimenting with DM gaming (Meta) to see if we can spot some trends.

Back in 2022, Zuckerberg dropped this line during an earnings call: “On Instagram alone, people already reshare Reels 1 billion times a day through DMs.”

And by 2025, that had grown to the (admittedly vague) “there are now as many messages sent each day on Instagram as there are on Messenger”

Oh, and BTW, Messenger (again, according to Zuck) had over a billion MAUs at that time, so it’s not like the Messenger app’s user base was in anyway comparable to his…

Anyway, moving on.

Elsewhere, we can find other numbers that show just how popular messaging apps are becoming. To quote Data Reportal, “At a worldwide level, social media users aged 16 and above are most likely to identify WhatsApp as their “favourite” social media platform, with 17.4 percent of respondents – 1 in 6 – identifying Meta’s largest messaging platform as their preferred option.”

And then, in the next paragraph, there’s this:

“Instagram ranks second with 16.4 percent of the vote, while Facebook completes Meta’s dominance of the top 3 spots, with 13 percent of respondents selecting this option.”

Now, I know this last line doesn’t tell you much about messaging within Instagram itself. But when you consider that messaging is clearly a “big thing” within Instagram (hence Zuck carrying on about it in earnings calls), and the fact that Instagram is the second most popular social app (apparently), then clearly there’s plenty of people messaging.

And Meta’s not the only one getting a slice of the messaging action.

Here are some Telegram numbers spanning just over a decade.

We also see similar trends wherever else we look.

Take the Chinese market, for example. According to some Tencent numbers I found, combined Weixin/WeChat users have been showing strong growth, too. As of the end of last year, that number stood at 1.42 billion MAUs.

To explain why messaging apps and DMs are becoming so popular, we don’t have to look too far here. DataReportal also had this in its report.

So the #1 reason for using social media is to “keep in touch with friends and family.”

Now compare social media today over the last few years compared to how it was back in the day. There’s been a certain “shift”, so to speak.

Here’s one example.

Now, it doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out what’s going one here, does it?

When “keeping in touch with friends and family” is the #1 reason given for using social media, but that social media suddenly becomes 98% not friends and family, people are probably going to either abandon your app… or they’re going to use it in a way that lets them keep in touch with friends and family.

Enter the rise of DMs and messaging.

Too bad for this kid chicken nuggets haven’t yet been upgraded to use DMs on TikTok…

Now, obviously, this isn’t exactly anything new.

If you’ve been in marketing for a couple of years, then there’s a 99.99% chance that you’ve heard the term “dark social” by now.

What is new, however, is just how much so-called “dark social” is starting to take over the web. Although, numbers here are kinda hard to find — even the Wikipedia page for dark social only contains uncited claims.

But even if those claims are uncited, I’m going to repeat them anyway (because, as we all know, if enough marketers repeat a number, it must be true…). Here’s the claim:

“Recent studies and reports suggest that Dark Social can account for a significant portion of social sharing, often ranging between 80% and 95% of all online content sharing.” [Link]

And that’s a problem for social media companies.

After all, if you’re spending your time sending DMs to your friends, and your relying on direct shares for a lot of your content discovery, how are social media companies going to show you a maximum number of ads?

That’s right, they’ve gotta find a way to monetize what’s currently unmonetized.

And that’s where games come into the picture.

Not that I expect games to be the final boss here. Rather, I suspect this is just the first step — a little “warm up” to get you used to the idea of “suggested” content appearing in your private messages. (Now you get why TikTok’s billing it as a “fun… playful element”.)

Then, once they’ve gotten the average user used to games, then there’ll be something else… then something else… and something else… until suddenly, 98% of your DMs is suggested content and barely any of your friends/families messages.

That’s the end game (probably).

And here’s how you monetize it.

Takeaway

Look, obviously that last bit is just a theory — a desperate attempt to explain why social media companies are suddenly wanting to add games to DMs.

But whether the theory is correct or not is besides the point.

There’s many indicators pointing towards more and more social traffic finding itself within the so-called “dark” walls of messaging apps.

So the question is, how are you, the humble affiliate marketer, going to worm your way into people’s private messaging apps? (Without mass spamming because, let’s face it, that’s a tough game to play.)

Well, here’s one response — copy what the big tech platforms are doing, and start making games people can play inside of their messaging apps.

And if you think this sounds hard, then I’ve got one word for you.

Text.

As in text-based games.

These are a thing. There’s even an entire category on Steam dedicated to the genre.

And you know the best part about them?

They’re cheap to develop and cheap to run… and if you don’t have ideas, your favorite LLM will probably help you out.

Here’s a prompt that seems to get LLMs to spit out some interesting and simple-to-build ideas:

Notice the bit about how the game should “encourage sharing”? That’s the important bit — your goal here is to bootstrap the thing with a minimum amount of marketing, then hopefully have the whole “viral loop” thing takeover and do the rest for you.

Then, the only thing you need to do is tee up a bunch of affiliate links you can drop in during gameplay from time-to-time.

If you make your game about sports/poker/or anything casino-ish adjacent, then the Bovada Affiliate Program would be a great match here.

Closing Thought

This week felt like a good time to drop a quote about stealing.

After all, the entire news section was basically just building up to a “do what the big tech platforms are doing” conclusion.

So on that note, I give you Picasso.

So do what Picasso did.

Identify what’s good, and use it in your own work.

Just make sure you’re ready to monetize that work before you do it.

The Bovada Affiliate Program can help you out there.

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(Featured image by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS via Pexels)

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