Go Big or Go Home: Winning Traffic Strategies for Profitability in the iGaming
Go Big or Go Home: what it takes to win in iGaming? 🤔
Artem Butov recently shared his expert point of view on this topic during his talk at the Island Conference. He is an entrepreneur with over 17 years of experience in strategic media planning and 12 years of experience in performance marketing. At the panel, he shared some proven approaches to scaling traffic and increasing profitability in the iGaming industry.
Here are more points he talked about:
1. Market overview
Insights & Volume Shifts
- The global iGaming market was valued at approximately $37.5B in 2015;
- In 2024, the market is estimated at $78.7B to $106.2B, projected year-over-year growth;
- Online Sports Betting is the largest and fastest-growing segment, is projected to grow at a rate of 10.8% over the next 5 years;
- By 2030, the market is expected to reach between $154.3B and $186.5B, with a CAGR of 11.9% from 2025 to 2030 annually.
Trends to Watch (Technological drivers)
- Gamified onboarding funnels
- AI-powered automation & personalization
- Mobile-first funnels & App store traffic
Trends to Watch (Content & Media trends)
- Short-form video (UGC) on TikTok, Reels, YouTube Shorts
- High-trust content: SEO + YouTube + Telegram
- Crypto casinos & Community-driven traffic
2. Fatigued traffic sources
- Generic Pop / Redirect: Oversaturated, weak intent, high bounce rate
- Old-School Email Blasts: Spam filters, low open rates, blacklists
- Overused Google UAC: Account bans, flagged vertical, poor AI matching
- Unsegmented Push Traffic: High bounce, low retention, ad fatigue
- Low-Quality Content Sites: Google's Helpful Content Updates hit rankings
- Banner-only Native: Banner blindness, poor CTR, bad mobile performance
3. Trending traffic sources
- TikTok UGC + Reels: Viral short-form, especially mobile slots & live promos
- Telegram Funnels: High CTR, great for promo drops, bots, and gamified onboarding
- Influencer Micro-Tier (YouTube, Twitch): Strong trust, ideal for live casino and tutorials
- AI-powered SEO: Sustainable, compounding traffic with smart content
- Facebook UGC Ads (Whitehat): Scalable in Tier-2 GEOs, content-first funnels work best
- Push 2.0 / Segmented Bot: AI-segmented onboarding with bonus triggers
- Crypto Communities (Reddit, Discord): High intent traffic, especially for crypto casinos
4. Best-performing funnels in iGaming
- Crash games funnel (Fast-paced funnel built around instant-win mechanics)
- Slots-centric funnel (Focused on promoting trending, high-visibility slots)
5. Scam detection in traffic / Patterns signaling potential scam
- Traffic spikes without consistent performance
- High volume, low-quality leads
- Gaming patterns and identical player behavior
- Refusal to provide tracking transparency
- High ratio of bonus hunters / Multi-account users
Join C3PA and stay tuned for the next expert speeches and insights!