The online gambling marketplace, while certainly not bottomed out, has become pretty saturated from the point of view of the affiliate industry. With the emergence of gambling online as a massive money spinner, quite a number of other sectors benefited off the bottom line. Advertising and affiliate marketing were two of these sectors.

The online gambling industry, especially in the UK and Europe has become mature, and this changes the way things in marketing need to get done. While years ago it took very little money for someone to get set up as an affiliate online, this has changed, and it is not so easy for these small one-man ops to make a decent living off affiliate earnings. This is a performance based industry, and due to complexities in the marketplace, rewards are fast becoming diluted. Cornering this market today we find specialized third party vendors, super affiliates and affiliate management agencies. These days it is far more beneficial to select a specialized niche and concentrate on this, rather than on a generic area. In other words, concentrate on "slots" for example, rather than "gambling online" per se.

However there are certainly ample opportunities popping up where we are seeing exponential growth. For example the mobile gambling industry, and perhaps turning our envious eyes upon an emerging market in the USA.

In the few short weeks that online poker has been test-played in the state of New Jersey – up to 33 000 new players, or more have registered and these are only intrastate players. Who knows what the possibilities could be as more and more states open their doors to poker at first, then perhaps other online gambling games too. But change management for affiliates is certainly a strong recommendation too. Affiliate business owner need to learn how to tap into a new market place.

Just out of interest – including the usual Thanks Giving holiday traditions they had to deal with, punters found the time to create 5,000 new online accounts. Testing commenced in New Jersey on the 21st November, and while it was difficult for assessing how many wagers were actually placed, some gamers had registered with more than one online brand. This indicates the largest expansion of gambling in the state since 1978, when the first Atlantic City casino opened its doors to the public. They are the third stat in the USA to offer legal and regulated gambling online.