Affiliate Disclosure
This page sets out plainly how The Pokies makes money, what an affiliate link is, what it does and doesn't change about how reviews are written, and what we promise — and don't promise — about the operators we cover. The full picture sits on the About and Editorial Policy pages too; this disclosure is the short version of the commercial side.
What an affiliate link is
Most outbound links on The Pokies pointing at an operator carry a tracking tag, usually embedded directly in the URL. When a reader clicks the link and lands on the operator's site, the operator records that the visit came from the pokies. If that reader subsequently registers, completes identity verification and makes a real-money deposit, the operator pays The Pokies a commission. The amount is either a one-time fee per qualifying registration or, more typically, a percentage of the operator's net revenue from that player over a defined window of time. In neither case does the reader pay anything extra: the reader receives the same welcome bonus, the same wagering terms and the same cashier limits as any reader who arrives at the operator through any other route. The commission comes out of the operator's own marketing budget.
Not every outbound link is an affiliate link. Links to regulators (ACMA, Curacao eGaming, UKGC), support services (Gambling Help Online, BetStop), independent player communities (AskGamblers, Casino Guru, Trustpilot) and other reference resources are plain hyperlinks with no tracking and no commercial relationship attached. Links to game studios are similarly untracked. The rough rule of thumb is straightforward: if a link points at a casino operator with a clickable signup, assume it's affiliated. If it points anywhere else, assume it isn't.
What the partnership does not buy
A commercial relationship with an operator doesn't buy that operator a higher score on The Pokies, and the absence of a commercial relationship doesn't depress a score either. The framework set out in the Editorial Policy is applied identically to every brand that receives a full review. In practice, we've rated partner operators at six and below, and we've rated operators with no commercial agreement at eight and above. Two reasons for that. First, an obvious editorial one: a review site that inflates scores for paying brands lasts about as long as it takes readers to notice, which isn't very long. Second, a commercial one: a high score that doesn't reflect what readers find on the operator's site produces fast cancellations, support escalations and complaints. Those move chargeback rates up and lifetime values down, which is precisely the metric the operator is paying us to influence in the right direction. The long-term commercial logic and the editorial logic both point the same way.
What the partnership does buy
What an affiliate relationship buys is access — sometimes — to specific data the operator doesn't publish on its marketing site. That can include raw withdrawal-time distributions, bonus participation rates, or KYC clearance times measured against a documented window. The Pokies uses that data where it sharpens the review; it never uses it to compose claims that contradict what we observed during ordinary player testing. Where the operator's internal data and our observations disagree, the observations win and the disagreement is flagged in the review itself.
How readers can verify this
If you want to test whether the editorial position above is real or marketing, three pieces of evidence are public. First, the rating distribution itself: across every operator currently on the pokies, partner brands and non-partner brands sit on the same curve. Second, the published lists of operators we won't recommend at any rating — those are mostly partner operators we tested and pulled coverage from after support quality, cashier behaviour or licence standing deteriorated. Third, the change log on each review: every score adjustment carries a date and a one-line reason, and partner operators don't get a free pass on negative adjustments. If any of those three patterns isn't holding up over time, the right place to flag it is the Contact page.
What this disclosure does not cover
Three things sit outside the scope of this page. First, this disclosure isn't legal advice on whether you can lawfully use the operators we review from an Australian address — the About page describes the position under the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (Cth) in more detail. Second, this disclosure isn't a substitute for due diligence on the operator itself: every brand on the pokies has its own terms, licence references and dispute procedures, and the responsibility to read them sits with the individual player. Third, this disclosure isn't a guarantee of operator behaviour: we test rigorously and write honestly, but operator conditions move at a faster cadence than any review schedule, so any number you read on a review page should be re-checked on the operator's own cashier before it drives a real-money decision.
Responsible gambling, restated
The Pokies is funded by people clicking through and signing up at operators. That funding model creates an obvious incentive for any affiliate site to push registrations, and that incentive has to be balanced honestly against the harm gambling can cause. We don't recommend gambling as a way to make money. We don't push deposits in copy. We make every review readable as a "do not register" recommendation as readily as a "register" one, and we maintain a published list of brands we no longer cover. The Responsible Gambling page covers harm-minimisation tools and Australian support services in detail; please read it before depositing real money anywhere, with or without our review attached.
Information collected from readers who arrive at the pokies through any of these links is described on the Privacy Policy page; the technical detail of analytics and tracking sits on the Cookie Policy page.
Questions about this disclosure
If anything on this page is unclear, the right place is the Contact page. We will respond in writing, on the record, and the response will be kept on file so that the same question doesn't have to be asked twice.