Affiliate Interview Series - Nicholas S.

**GPWA Daniel** · 6 August 2024, 9:50 am

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(This interview was originally published in the July 2024 issue of the GPWA Times Magazine.)

Please tell us about your background, where you grew up, and where you live today.
Originally, I’m from Birmingham, U.K., and right now I am living in Brighton. Most of my life and career has been spent overseas, though.

I began working in casinos in Birmingham many years ago (I’m not going to say how many) and it led to quite a few opportunities. I have been lucky enough during my career to live and work in places like Russia, Latvia, Romania, Singapore, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, Myanmar and the U.S., and that isn’t even all of them!

This was at a time when casinos were opening up all over the globe, and British people still commanded respect in the world. Sadly, those days are long gone, so I hawked my talents and knowledge around the online gaming universe.

In your GPWA bio, you list ?acronym title="Page Ranking">PR consultant?as your occupation. How did you get into public relations and how has that experience helped you as an iGaming affiliate?
The PR Consultant role came about because prior to getting into casinos my wish was to become a journalist. How I got sidetracked by the glitz and glamour of casinos, I am unsure. It may have been the thought of wearing a dinner suit and a self-tie bowtie to work every night that did it.

Anyway, as well as working in glamorous VIP casinos all over the world, I also sidelined, writing for a gambling magazine called Casino World. This magazine isn’t in operation anymore, but back in the day it was the premier publication for the gambling industry. I specialized in what I termed ‘human interest?stories. Basically, mini biographies about people and places in the global gambling industry.

Years later (I mean years and years later), my daughter did what I failed to do and took an education in journalism, copywriting and PR. As a result, I started a PR agency with a view of working with my daughter. The plan was to establish a global iGaming PR agency. Sadly, circumstances conspired against this idea and it was scrapped. Following this I fell into a long bout of depression and am probably only now coming out the other end.

Recently I have been thinking about reigniting what I started, and giving PR another go. I have managed to come up with a whole new angle that nobody else is doing so who knows?

There are certainly elements of PR, especially digital PR, that are of massive benefit to a casino affiliate. The most obvious of these is copywriting, but SEO and building backlinks also play a part.

You mentioned in a post in the GPWA forums back in July 2022 that you began a casino affiliate site as a hobby while you were unemployed, but it became so big that you lacked “the expertise to and resources to adopt?all of your time to it. Please tell us about this journey and where your affiliate business stands today.
It is still kind of a hobby. I would love to be more serious about it but with no money coming in it’s hard to do this. What I need is people around me to help motivate me. The truth is that the work required is simply too much for one person.

I would love to be involved in a partnership whereby I give up the rights to my existing sites in exchange for practical and financial help to drive the sites forward.

I am happy with how my sites look at this moment in time. When I began the design of the sites was pretty awful. However, aesthetics doesn’t make money and even though I am proud of what I have learned so far, I crave the input of someone with more skills and experience to help me get to a point where the site is generating consistent revenue.

Becoming a full-time affiliate would be the goal, but my situation due to my period of ill health is not great right now. I thrive in a team environment and building a team on a budget of $0 is not feasible. I’m kind of stuck in a Catch 22 situation. Working on the sites gives me a purpose, but doesn’t provide enough of a return to do it full time.

Giving up the sites would leave me with no purpose yet the underlying problem would still exist. At the end of the day, I am a casino person. Online or offline, it doesn’t matter, gambling is in my DNA and I am bloody good at it.

In March 2024, you posted in the GPWA forums that you had put a lot of “time, effort and money?into your site Kenslots.com, but were not having much success. What has been your course of action since this thread was posted and how helpful was the advice you received?
I did receive some great advice. It led to my making quite a few changes. The main one being that I ditched the Ken Slots website. I retain the URL and would like to resurrect it at some point in the future. I actually see Ken Slots as an online slots casino with its own unique identity. I have several ideas on how to achieve this.

The whole Ken Slots idea was inspired by my father. He died during COVID times so I figured that it was a nice tribute. It hasn’t been much of an earner, of course, but it was a good little project that enabled me to learn a bunch of cool stuff.

In the end, the one casino affiliate site I was struggling with turned into two casino affiliate sites. I took much of the content and ported it over to top10slotsites.uk and topcasinolists.uk. It sounds a bit mad, but it made sense at the time.

Previously on Ken Slots, I was promoting bingo and lottery products as well as casinos and it was too much. In my mind I was aiming to create a site similar to AskGamblers, but the reality was that without a team and capital it was never going to work.

Instead, I settled on a casino affiliate site focusing on the U.K. market. I do understand that the U.K. market is already saturated and that the UKGC is regulating it more and more every day. But it’s what I know and what I feel most comfortable writing about. Top10slotsites.uk has become more of a casino gambling related blog, with less pillar content and a new blog post every day.

I am also having to concentrate on link-building as previously this was something I avoided. Backlinks will certainly help boost my domain authority, but it won’t be a cure all solution though.

The “News?section on your sites is extensive and updated regularly. Do you do most of the writing? If not, do you hire freelancers or do you have a staff?
I used to do all the research and writing for the ‘News?section myself. Now, however, I admit to using AI for pretty much everything. This is only really because I am one person with two casino affiliate sites, although only one requires updating.

I began by purchasing a subscription to NeilPatel.com. As well as SEO tools, he also offers an AI article writer. It is OK, it has some useful features, it certainly got me out of a hole. I don’t currently use it as I have been experimenting with ChatGPT, I probably will go back to it though.

I have tried others. Jasper is a good AI tool. I like that it integrates with Surfer SEO. I used this when I was working with a lead generation agency. I was against any kind of AI initially but now I am a convert. Sadly, I cannot justify the subscription cost to go back to Jasper and Surfer SEO, but if that changes then I might.

I do have another site, bigdealpromotions.co.uk. This is my PR and copywriting portal. I do not use AI for this site. All the blog posts and marketing material are 100% my own work. It does not make sense to use AI for a PR based site, and anyway I enjoy the writing process, and the research.

I do not use freelancers, although I have used them when working with clients. Employing staff would be just a dream at this point. I am very much a happy little band of one right now.

Is it true that “content is king? How much organic traffic does your news section attract?
Yes, this is still true today. The difference is that people mainly consume short-form content as opposed to longer format. In years gone by the only real way to consume content was to read a book. This was because the objective was to gain knowledge. In order to gain this knowledge, it was necessary to know everything about your subject.

Today, the focus is more on entertainment. This, in turn, has led to shorter, easier-to-digest content. It has always amused me that 80% of the earth’s population holds the accumulated knowledge of human existence in the palm of their hand, yet mostly they are concerned with 30 second dog videos. I must admit though, I also love dog videos!

Anybody that has ever read my written content is very complimentary. Is that because they are just being nice, or is it because I am a rare literary talent? I’ll let you decide.

What is your approach to SEO? How much time do you specifically spend on SEO for your sites on a weekly basis?
I spend far too little time on SEO. That is mostly because I have other more pressing issues. When I am writing a piece of content, I decide what the keywords will be beforehand and write it based on those. I don’t obsess about it though.

I used to concentrate on creating witty, well-constructed articles that would make an enjoyable read. Now, sadly, for my casino affiliate sites at least, it is more about function over form.

I have learned how to use multiple SEO tools such as Semrush, Ahrefs, Neil Patel, Surfer SEO and others. This means that I am way more proficient than I was when I started. The thing about SEO is that you probably need to spend a considerable amount of time on that alone. I guess this is why SEO agencies are in such demand.

Your sites also provide visitors the opportunity to play demos of slot games with an extensive menu of games to choose from. How many games do you have in your database? How helpful is the demo option for attracting and converting players?
As of May 2024, I had around 12,800 slot games in my portfolio with more and more being added all the time. I don’t know if there is a critical mass for demo slots, but if there is I have more than enough now anyway.

The demo slot games that are featured on top10slotsites.uk all come from Marc & Damian over at Slots Launch. They provide a WordPress plug-in which I have to say I thoroughly recommend. It may not be for everyone, but it gives my site a new dimension and added interest. It’s too early to say whether it is helping to attract or convert new players, but it certainly isn’t doing any harm.

There is a train of thought that says offering free slot game demos attracts the wrong type of player, and that there is no value in it. This may be true, but I tend to think that it encourages loyalty, and that certainly does have value.

I do not run a mailing list (yet) or offer a forum, so free slot games are a reason for people to revisit the site. As a plug-in it is also maintenance and hassle free which I like.

How do you decide what affiliate programs to work with? What are the keys to a successful relationship with affiliate managers?
I admit to being quite profligate when it comes to choosing affiliate programs. I tend to want to join them all. I’m a sucker for a cool looking website, so if a casino affiliate has a pretty landing page and some bright and shiny new brands, I sign up immediately.

This year has seen me change my approach though. I am going to be focusing more on using affiliate networks such as Confido and Gambling Affiliation. At the end of the day the deals are better, easier to acquire, and there is a good choice of top casino brands all in one place. It makes sense for me as time is of a premium.

The key to a successful relationship with an AM is communication. Although I have been anything but communicative just lately as I do have other pressing issues to attend to.

I do tend to be a bit of a people pleaser, so find it hard to give every brand the No. 1 slot on my main page. To counter this, I never promote more than 12 brands on any of my main pages and I keep them on a rotation basis so that brands change every time the page refreshes. When it comes to blog posts, I generally promote only three brands at a time. Honestly, I don’t know if this is a good system, but it cuts the work down considerably.

If a 23-year-old friend of yours told you he or she wanted to start an iGaming affiliate website tomorrow, what advice would you give to them?
Don’t do it! If you don’t have a team of designers, copywriters and SEO experts and a good chunk of change to start you off, then you are wasting your time. As an individual, it is way too hard unless you have time, capital and a long-term strategy.

Of course, there are other options. You could become an affiliate in a less competitive field such as, I don’t know, theatre tickets or something. The returns may not be as great but at least you will see a return.

I was advised to target a narrower niche aspect of online gambling. This is a better strategy. Targeting a niche like blackjack casinos in New Zealand, PayPal casinos in Canada or Australian video poker casinos. My problem was that I had the content before the idea, as opposed to the other way around.

My sites began as vehicles for written content and not specifically affiliate sites. This made it way harder for me than it needed to be. If I could rewind the clock I would do things differently, but sadly, this option isn’t available. If I was going to start over again, I would simply focus on the U.S. market.

Do you gamble?
I used to gamble, but not anymore. No real reason for this, I just don’t see the need. When I did gamble, I used to be a blackjack player. I was pretty good, too. I was winning several thousand Deutschmarks in a casino in Berlin when the casino manager asked me to leave. He escorted me to the cash desk to cash my chips and proceeded to walk me to the exit.

On the way we passed a roulette table, so I took 50 Deutschmarks in chips that I hadn’t cashed out and stuck them all on 17. You should have seen the look on the poor guy's face when 17 came in and he had to take me back to the cash desk to cash out one more time.

I also had a fair amount of success as a poker player. I never played in a World Series or anything but in my own little sphere I did OK. Obviously, working around the world as a casino manager left little time for taking part in global poker tournaments. I wasn’t always working in a country where poker was a thing either.

What I used to do was take a month off and travel around playing in provincial poker tournaments. I was never concerned with winning the tournament, the most important thing was to cash out.

I reckon that I used to cash (make a profit) at least one time in three. That may not sound like much but those are seriously good stats. I either won or cashed out as one of the top eight players in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Isle of Man, Ireland, Bulgaria, India, Russia, Brighton and many other places.

I played cash games too, also successfully. As I was more focused on making a profit as opposed to making friends, sometimes the atmosphere in cash games could get a little too tense for me.

What are your hobbies? What takes up your time when you are not working?
While I was a brand ambassador for an events management company I enjoyed attending sports events with my wife. I still like to go and watch cricket, but she hates it, so I go alone.

In the winter months, snooker is my passion. I used to be an OK player. I was recently practicing against a local Brighton guy who is attempting to get through Q school to become a professional. I made a 72 break against him which I was pleased with but in the next frame, he made a 140 break which quickly brought me back down to earth.

Other than that, I enjoy photography. I specialize in street photography. Basically, I stalk people in the streets and take photos of them when they’re not looking. I enjoy taking street portraits of people with an interesting look, there’s a lot of those in Brighton, but I always ask them first. I find images of people much more interesting than architecture or trees. Occasionally my wife and I travel to London, and she models for me. We try to find somewhere with good light and do a photoshoot. Afterwards we generally end up in Borough Market for lunch and a glass of wine.

If someone were visiting you for 24 hours and had never been to where you live, where would you bring them and why?
If I was still in Birmingham and the Villa were playing, I would take them to the hospitality section at Villa Park. I once sat next to David Bradley, (Walder Frey in Game of Thrones) a massive Villa fan, he would love that they have qualified for the Champions League. I’ve never seen Prince William though.

If in Brighton, that would be more challenging. I certainly wouldn’t take them to a Brighton FC game; why would you? To be honest there is absolutely nothing of any interest in Brighton. It’s a real hellhole! If pushed, and it was in the Summer then Devil’s ****, or Seven Sisters, on the South Downs would make a good day out. The scenery is beautiful, there are some amazing hiking trails, and you could sit and have a picnic, or visit one of the local pubs.

If you could invite any five people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be?
In order to even things up at a dinner party it would need to be three ladies and two gentlemen. However, narrowing it down to only two guys would be a real challenge. My initial thoughts were to opt for Lord Byron and Caravaggio. Quite apart from having lived incredible lives, they were also known to enjoy a drink.

That said, Ernest Hemingway is my favorite author, and it would be amazing to spend an evening in his company. Inviting a top British comedian such as Les Dawson, Jimmy Carr or Kenneth Williams would be a hoot, although they may try to monopolize the conversation.

Choosing three ladies that would add both glamour and an entertainment factor is also tough. When it comes to actresses, I tend to prefer those from the golden era of cinema. Someone like Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Ingrid Bergman or Audrey Hepburn. There again Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Aniston or Jodie Foster would be great choices too. I do admit to having a massive crush on Emma Watson, though, so she would have to be one of the three.

If I were to include a sportswoman, I would go for someone like Chris Evert, Sharon Davies or Olga Korbut. As for a woman from ancient history, there’s only one choice. I would have to invite Mary Magdelene because, well, I would need to know if Jesus existed or not!

Name three things that people reading this magazine don’t know about you.

Not exactly about me, but my grandfather was the youngest person in England to be arrested for illegal gambling. He was a ‘bookie’s runner,?in the early 1900s. He used to relay bets and cash between bookmakers and punters in Birmingham. He was just 12 when he was arrested.
My name is stenciled onto a microchip attached to the NASA space probe ‘Europa Clipper?due to be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in October 2024. The mission is to Jupiter and is scheduled to arrive in Jupiter’s orbit in April 2030. Sadly, the deadline has now passed so you can’t be included but you can learn more about the mission here.
I used to work for the Russian mafia. I helped to set up several casinos (real ones) in Moscow in the early ?0s. Whilst there I inadvertently got caught up in a Russian constitutional crisis. On the 4th of October 1993, a coup was attempted to oust Soviet Leader Boris Yeltsin. The plotters were holed up in the ‘White House,?which is the Russian Parliament building in the center of Moscow. Yeltsin sent tanks to surround the building and when it became clear that the plotters would not come quietly, he gave the order to storm the building. It just so happened that I was on board a ship moored just 500 meters away from the Parliament building and watched the entire coup play out from the ship's deck while sipping on gin and tonic.

**universal4** · 6 August 2024, 5:13 pm

Good interview.

Wow cool about the space launch, if you remember drop me a line the day before the launch. I will go to my backyard and wave at the rocket as it launches, I watch many launches from the back yard (80-90 miles away)

Rick
Universal4

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