Affiliate fraud is bleeding iGaming operators dry, and most prevention tactics simply don’t work fast enough to stop the damage. Search “affiliate fraud detection,” and you’ll find the same surface-level advice: “set alerts,” “use fraud scores,” “run audits.” But in high-stakes iGaming markets where CPAs are generous and exploitation rampant, that advice is either outdated or dangerously generic.
At PartnerMatrix, we’ve worked with hundreds of operators and witnessed firsthand how ineffective traditional tactics can be. The real cost of affiliate fraud often comes not from bot traffic or click spamming, but from clean-looking fraud that appears legitimate on the surface. From our experience at PartnerMatrix, the costliest affiliate fraud isn’t what you expect.
If you’re serious about protecting your acquisition budget in 2025, you need a framework solution, tools, and a method for recruiting affiliates, as well as understanding how to track, attribute, and reward them, and how to audit behaviors that most systems miss.
Let’s learn how to tighten your program against losses, regulatory risk, or models that prioritize short-term wins over long-term value. If you’re running an affiliate program today or thinking of launching one, you’ll want to see the real risks and how to get ahead without overengineering your process.
New to affiliate fraud? Jump to: Why You Need Affiliate Fraud Intelligence
Already managing affiliate operations? Jump to: How to Prevent Affiliate Fraud
Affiliate fraud is the intentional, unethical manipulation of affiliate programs to earn commissions without delivering real value. Affiliate fraud encompasses practices such as click spam, cookie stuffing, CPA abuse, and bonus hunting, but also includes activities explicitly forbidden under the terms and conditions of affiliate marketing programs. While some tactics are well-known, others remain hidden in plain sight, masquerading as normal user behavior.
Imagine this: a mid-sized online casino launches its affiliate program. Registrations spike. First-time deposits trickle in. Is this a sign of success?
Not necessarily. Here is what could hide behind the increases:
Weeks later, thousands have been lost to fraudulent commissions with no real user growth.
“One thing we’ve learned supporting 100+ operators is that by the time fraud becomes obvious, the damage is already done.”
Affiliate marketing is built on trust and performance. But unfortunately, that trust can be exploited through various types of fraud. These deceptive tactics not only skew campaign data but also result in wasted budgets, distorted ROI calculations, and a loss of trust between brands and their affiliate partners.
Below, you can discover the most common types of iGaming-Specific affiliate fraud
Affiliate programs are powerful growth engines, but they also carry exposure to fraud and inefficiencies when not properly structured or monitored. Many issues stem from how operators approach rewards, risk detection, and partner validation. Below are key blind spots we see in affiliate management today and why they’re worth your attention.
Most affiliate programs still favor CPA (Cost-Per-Acquisition) models, where affiliates are rewarded for triggering a specific user action, such as a first deposit or sign-up. The problem is that these models reward the event, not the long-term value of the user. This creates a gap between what the affiliate earns and what the operator gains in return. Fraudsters exploit this misalignment by generating high volumes of low-quality or fake sign-ups that look successful on paper but fail to deliver meaningful returns. As regulations evolve, there’s increasing pressure on operators to tie affiliate payouts to user lifetime value (LTV) and genuine post-acquisition engagement.
Artificial Intelligence and machine learning tools are valuable in affiliate fraud detection, but they’re not a complete solution on their own. Without contextual understanding or human oversight, AI often generates false positives or misses nuanced patterns entirely. For instance, fraud scoring—which assigns numerical risk scores based on affiliate or user behavior—can become ineffective noise without adaptive rules or layered validation systems. Accurate detection depends not just on automation, but on data interpretation grounded in the specific realities of affiliate traffic.
KYC, or Know Your Customer, is a compliance process that requires users to submit identification to verify their identity. While essential for preventing player-side fraud and meeting regulatory standards, KYC does not apply to affiliates in most programs. This leaves a blind spot: affiliates engaged in abuse can still operate multiple accounts, spoof traffic through VPNs, or rotate devices to avoid detection. KYC verifies who the players are, but it does nothing to assess the integrity of the traffic source or the legitimacy of the affiliate’s activity.
Top-performing affiliates can sometimes be the least questioned, but high volume doesn’t always equal high value. Many sophisticated fraud rings operate in stealth by mimicking the behavioral patterns of your best referrers. These operations are hard to detect because their traffic blends in seamlessly with legitimate sources. They may distribute activity across multiple accounts or simulate organic conversions, all while generating low-quality traffic that erodes ROI over time. Without automated analysis and anomaly detection, these threats can persist undetected for long periods.
Fraud isn’t just a nuisance but a six- or seven-figure liability. Here are some stats and figures that reflect the impact and cost of affiliate fraud:
Assuming the reported affiliate marketing fraud statistics, if you pay a $100 CPA and 25% of signups are fake or low-quality, this would amount to $250,000 wasted for 10,000 signups, with an expense of $1,000,000 and 25% fake signups. Over the course of a year, that would result in $3 million hole in your budget.
“From bonus abuse to fake traffic loops, fraud grows with scale. The more affiliates you add, the higher your exposure.”
Even if you take every precaution to protect your business, fraud can still appear unexpectedly. That’s why detecting affiliate fraud is essential for maintaining ongoing security and stability. We’ll highlight the key warning signs to watch for when monitoring your affiliate campaigns. Plus, you can learn how to keep affiliate marketing fraud at bay and catch sophisticated fraud tactics that traditional methods often overlook.
Make traffic sources transparent from day one. Include monitoring clauses. Flag any changes.
From day one, new affiliates go into a capped-commission probation tier. They earn more only once quality is proven.
Flag overlaps between affiliate logins and player IPs. Alert for mismatched locations or shared devices.
Generic alerts overwhelm teams. Rule-based alerts that tie behaviors to specific types of fraud are key.
“We use threshold triggers based on behavior. For example: if more than 50% of players become ‘active’ within 24 hours, it’s suspicious.”
Even if you take all steps to ensure that your business is secure, instances of fraud may still occur unexpectedly, making affiliate fraud detection a crucial requirement for ongoing security and continuity. We will provide you with the main signals you should pay attention to when monitoring affiliate marketing campaigns. You can also discover how Keeping Affiliate Marketing Frauds at Bay offers actionable insights and technology solutions to detect sophisticated fraud tactics that traditional methods miss.
At the core of PartnerMatrix’s anti-fraud solution is a six-level detection system that monitors affiliate activity across multiple dimensions, including traffic sources, IP addresses, user behavior, and more.
PartnerMatrix identifies and flags:
“Most fraud hides in things that look ‘normal’ but act just a little off. We catch that.”
If you’re serious about affiliate fraud prevention, the following practices are non-negotiable:
PartnerMatrix is built to make all these best practices not only possible but practical. Instead of relying on manual checks or scattered tools, PartnerMatrix helps you operationalize fraud prevention through a centralized system designed for scale. That brings us to our Anti-Fraud Mechanism—a predictive model that goes beyond surface-level signals and dives deep into affiliate behavior patterns.
Affiliate fraud rarely announces itself.
It hides in the patterns no one checks, the slight overlaps no one questions, the “normal” traffic that feels just a little off.
That’s why we built the Anti-Fraud Mechanism, a system that doesn’t just react, but predicts.
Our technology constantly monitors affiliate activity across six critical fraud levels, catching what manual reviews often miss:
Level 1: IP Overlap – Affiliate vs Player
When an affiliate shares an IP address with a player, the system flags it as suspicious.
When the same IP address is used by both the affiliate and their referred player(s), it often signals self-referral fraud or internal traffic loops.
PartnerMatrix scans for these overlaps in real time and automatically flags suspicious affiliate-player IP matches for review or immediate blocking. This is used to prevent payouts for fabricated signups and save budget on low-value traffic.
Level 2: IP Overlap – Affiliate vs Affiliate
Affiliates running multiple accounts to boost their numbers? We catch it through hidden IP matches between different affiliate profiles.
If two or more affiliate accounts regularly log in from the same IP address, the same person is likely controlling them to artificially inflate commission volume. PartnerMatrix detects shared IPs between affiliate profiles and alerts your team to possible collusion or account farming. This helps operators revoke bonuses and consolidate fraudulent accounts before they can further abuse the system.
Level 3: Unapproved Traffic Sources
We will alert you if traffic comes from sources not listed in the affiliate’s system. Because hidden traffic often hides bigger risks.
When traffic is delivered from sources not declared or allowed in the affiliate agreement, such as pop-unders, redirects, or blacklisted domains, it usually hides incentivized or misleading traffic.
PartnerMatrix cross-checks the actual traffic source with those approved in the system and triggers alerts for mismatches. This is used to block traffic from non-compliant channels and maintain program integrity.
Level 4: Disproportionate Player Bets
One player accounting for 80% of an affiliate’s betting activity? That’s not engagement, that’s a red flag.
When a single player accounts for the majority of betting volume tied to one affiliate, it suggests value manipulation or revenue concentration. PartnerMatrix monitors player contribution patterns and raises alerts when a single account disproportionately drives betting activity. This helps you audit specific users and delay payouts until the traffic is verified as authentic.
Level 5: Revenue vs Commission Integrity Check
We cross-analyze net revenue and payable commissions to ensure payouts match real business performance, not fabricated numbers.
If an affiliate generates high commission payouts without contributing equivalent player revenue, the traffic may be inflated or fake. PartnerMatrix automatically cross-analyzes net gaming revenue (NGR) and commission values to detect mismatches. This ensures you only pay for performance that aligns with real, monetized traffic.
Level 6: Unnatural Active Player Rates
If more than 50% of an affiliate’s registered players become “active” too quickly, we trigger an alert for deeper review.
When more than 50% of an affiliate’s referred players suddenly become active in a short timeframe, it’s a red flag for automated signups or incentivized activity. PartnerMatrix benchmarks historical engagement data and triggers alerts when active player rates deviate from expected norms. This gives your fraud team time to review, intervene, and stop payout leakage before it scales.
Anti-Fraud isn’t a one-time scan or a static checklist.
It’s an evolving, intelligent system built to adapt as fraud tactics evolve. With PartnerMatrix, you’re not just reacting to yesterday’s threats, you’re staying ahead of tomorrow’s.
Our anti-fraud mechanism continuously improves by integrating new detection layers based on real-world patterns and emerging fraud behaviors across the iGaming ecosystem. As affiliate fraud becomes more sophisticated, PartnerMatrix ensures your defenses scale in tandem, without adding operational overhead.
We help you automate detection, protect your margins, and preserve campaign integrity – all from one centralized platform.
Even small programs can lose hundreds of thousands yearly to invisible fraud. Don’t wait for signs; detect them before they cost you.
Ready to Know What You’re Missing?
If you spend over $ 20,000 per month and aren’t confident in your fraud strategy, it’s time to take action. Book a free 20-minute session with our Sales Manager.
iGaming affiliate fraud is more aggressive and harder to detect than in other industries. Why? Because affiliates are often paid per player signup (CPA), fraudsters can profit instantly without delivering long-term value. Add to that widespread bonus abuse, multi-account schemes, and geo-compliance risks, and you get a uniquely complex fraud landscape.
PartnerMatrix is built for this. Our Anti-Fraud Mechanism monitors real-time behavior, flags suspicious patterns such as IP overlaps and fake conversions, and evolves as tactics change, keeping you ahead of threats specifically designed for iGaming.
The effective affiliate fraud detection and prevention tools are multi-layered fraud intelligence systems that combine rules, real-time data, and predictive analytics.
PartnerMatrix’s Anti-Fraud Mechanism does exactly that, monitoring affiliate behavior across six critical levels, from IP overlaps to bonus abuse, and evolving with each new fraud pattern. It’s built specifically for iGaming and seamlessly integrates into your affiliate program.
Explore PartnerMatrix Affiliate Platform Features
“Bad traffic” refers to traffic that triggers commission payouts but doesn’t result in long-term user value. This type of traffic drains marketing budgets and distorts performance metrics, making it essential to detect and monitor it closely to protect ROI and ensure sustainable growth.
How Does PartnerMatrix Stay Ahead of Emerging Fraud Tactics?
PartnerMatrix’s Anti-Fraud Mechanism continuously evolves by integrating new detection layers based on real-world fraud patterns and emerging behaviors in the iGaming ecosystem. This adaptive approach ensures your defenses keep pace with sophisticated fraudsters without adding operational overhead.
Why Is Continuous Monitoring Better Than One-Time Fraud Checks?
Fraudsters constantly change tactics, so one-time scans or static rules quickly become outdated. Continuous, real-time monitoring offered by PartnerMatrix provides ongoing risk assessment and proactive alerts, preventing losses before they escalate.
Can Smaller Affiliate Programs Benefit From PartnerMatrix’s Anti-Fraud System?
Yes. Even smaller programs can lose significant budgets to invisible fraud. PartnerMatrix scales to program size and complexity, providing affordable, automated fraud detection and prevention that protects acquisition budgets regardless of scale.
