AI, fraud and affiliate marketing: what operators need to know, with Levon Nikoghosyan

Finding affiliates is rarely the hard part; knowing whether their track record is genuine is. Levon Nikoghosyan, co-founder and CEO of AffPapa, began in iGaming as a developer and later ran PartnerMatrix for EveryMatrix before starting his own company. On iGaming Real Talk he explains how scams around listing fees work and how his platform tries to filter them out.

In this episode

• AffPapa was built as a directory with no middleman fee and a subscription model, so operators and affiliates deal directly rather than through a network (11:34).

• On listing fees, he says affiliates with serious traffic "wouldn't do it for free" now, but small sites with near-zero traffic ask operators for around 2K per brand (27:15, 28:27).

• Some new affiliates tell operators their Ahrefs stats are wrong; he says they may get "20 brands listed and then disappear" without delivering traffic (28:41, 29:20).

• When the host notes that fake Google Analytics screenshots are simple to create, he answers they are just as simple to detect; one operator was scammed three times in one day (29:40, 30:00).

• AffPapa has verified affiliate ownership for the last 2 years and now tags companies as approved, unbadged or new, with about 300 verified (22:28, 30:52, 31:54).

• On streamers, he says some have fake viewers and depositors whose players last a day or two, and comparing IPs is an easier check (33:53, 34:33).

Episode from iGaming Real Talk, published on YouTube.