An affiliate tipster is a tipster paid by bookmakers for the punters they send, so part of their income depends on what followers do at the bookmaker, not on how good the tips are. Some deals pay a one-off fee for each new customer. Revenue share deals pay a percentage of what referred punters lose, so a tipster on revenue share can earn the most in the months their followers do worst.
From 1 January 2027 the Interactive Gambling Act bars licensed wagering providers from paying or offering affiliates commissions tied to customer activity, and referral fees and revenue share both count. Before and after that date, the useful question about any tipster is the same: who pays them, and for what?
How tipster affiliate links work
An affiliate link is an ordinary link to a bookmaker with a tracking code added, so the bookmaker can tell which affiliate sent each new customer. It can sit behind a button beside the tip, a shortened link or a code you are asked to enter when you join. Clicking one costs you nothing on the day. Any cost comes later, through the prices you take and the bets you place.
The link is what turns a follower into a customer the tipster gets credit for. A deal can pay once, when the account opens, or keep paying on the customer's later deposits and bets. The 2026 reform's description of customer activity names all of these: opening or reactivating an account, depositing, betting and removing a limit.
Tipsters paid by bookmakers: the deal types
A tipster can be paid in three ways, and some combine them:
| Model | Who pays the tipster | What raises their income | Which way it pulls |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription | You, a set fee | Keeping subscribers | Towards results good enough that you stay |
| Fee per new customer, known as CPA (cost per acquisition) | The bookmaker, once for each new customer the link brings in | More sign-ups | Towards new accounts, whatever the tips are like |
| Revenue share | The bookmaker, a percentage of what referred customers lose, month after month | Followers losing | Directly against you |
| Hybrid | The bookmaker, a smaller fee plus a smaller share | Both | Both at once |
A tipster can hold a deal with several bookmakers and charge a subscription on top. The terms are agreed between the tipster and each bookmaker, and a follower is not a party to them.
Revenue share tipsters: a worked example
Revenue share puts the tipster's income on the opposite side of yours. Take an illustrative deal paying 30% of net revenue, meaning what the referred punters lose minus what they win. The tipster has 400 followers who all joined through the link:
| Month | Followers' total turnover | Followers' net result | Tipster's 30% share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $400,000 | Lose $20,000 | 30% x $20,000 = $6,000 |
| 2 | $400,000 | Lose $8,000 | 30% x $8,000 = $2,400 |
| 3 | $400,000 | Win $12,000 | Nothing: net revenue is -$12,000 |
Over the three months the followers are down $20,000 + $8,000 - $12,000 = $16,000, and the tipster has earned $6,000 + $2,400 = $8,400. Month 1, the followers' worst, was the tipster's best. Month 3, the only month the tips beat the bookmaker, paid the tipster nothing. Some deals carry that -$12,000 forward against the tipster's later commission; others reset each month.
Set that beside an illustrative fee of $150 for each new customer. Eighty sign-ups pay 80 x $150 = $12,000, whether those 80 punters go on to win or lose. That deal rewards bringing in accounts, and the next 80 sign-ups pay again.
The conflict of interest, and what it costs a follower
A bookmaker deal does not make a tip wrong. It changes what the tipster is rewarded for, and each pull has a cost you can name:
| The pull | What it looks like | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| More turnover | Tips every day, extra selections, multis | Margin on every bet; in a multi with independent legs the margin compounds with each leg, as the bookmaker margin guide shows |
| One bookmaker | Every tip links to the same bookmaker | The better price another bookmaker had |
| New accounts | "Join through my link" in every post | Another account to manage, and no better tips |
The price cost is easy to measure. Say a tip quotes $3.40 at the linked bookmaker, another bookmaker has $3.60, and the selection's true chance of winning is 30% (all illustrative). Expected value per $1 staked is win chance x decimal odds - 1:
- at $3.40: 0.30 x 3.40 - 1 = 0.02, or 2 cents in the dollar
- at $3.60: 0.30 x 3.60 - 1 = 0.08, or 8 cents in the dollar
Taking the linked price gives away 6 cents of every dollar staked on average, about 5,000 x 0.06 = $300 over $5,000 of such bets: exactly 20 cents per $1 on every winner, and nothing on a loser. On one $40 winner it is $136 back instead of $144.
Risk: Betting involves risk. A better price raises what a winning bet returns, not the chance that it wins, and a bet with positive expected value can still lose, and often does. See responsible gambling for limits and support.
Disclosure, and the commission ban from 1 January 2027
What consumer law expects
The Australian Consumer Law bars conduct in trade or commerce that is misleading or deceptive, or likely to be (Competition and Consumer Act 2010, Schedule 2, s 18). In a report on its sweep of social media influencers, published on 7 December 2023, the ACCC raised concerns about posts that did not clearly disclose a payment, gift or other incentive. It said discount codes and website referral links can point to a commission arrangement, and it flagged vague tags such as "spon", "collab" and "ambassador".
The ACCC says a disclosure should be immediately obvious to the people reading the post. A plain sentence beside the link, such as "Bookmaker A pays me when you join through this link", does that far better than a tag buried at the end of a long caption.
Publishing offers in NSW
In NSW it is an offence to publish a gambling advertisement that includes an inducement to gamble or to open a betting account (Betting and Racing Act 1998, s 33H). A disclaimer that the offer is not available in NSW does not save it. Liquor & Gaming NSW's advertising guideline GL4015 adds that a third party who publishes a prohibited gambling advertisement may be held liable as well as, or instead of, the provider. That applies where the third party acted under an agreement with a betting service provider, or for a benefit.
Section 62ZT: the ban on activity-based commissions
Section 62ZT, which the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Act 2026 inserts into the Interactive Gambling Act from 1 January 2027, covers any commission paid, offered or promised from that day. It bars licensed online wagering providers from paying or offering commissions tied to customer activity to staff or third parties who acquire, retain, reactivate, manage or refer customers. Commission includes referral fees, revenue share and profit share. ACMA describes it as a ban on commissions to staff or affiliates based on customer activity.
From 1 January 2027 the Act also stops providers using athletes, celebrities, influencers and certain other notable people to promote wagering: no new deal of that kind may be made, and wagering ads featuring them may not be broadcast or put online, whenever the deal was signed. The exception is narrow: racing content on dedicated racing broadcasts, channels and online services. The guide to the 2026 gambling reforms covers the rest of the Act.
The commission ban binds the licensed provider that pays. It says nothing about whether a tip is any good, and a tipster can still charge you a subscription. An offshore site is not a licensed provider at all: offering online betting to people in Australia without a state or territory licence is an offence under the Interactive Gambling Act (s 15AA). ACMA has warned influencers that promoting illegal online gambling breaks the law.
Note: Checked on 7 October 2026 against the Act's revised explanatory memorandum and ACMA. This is general information, not legal advice: whether a particular post or deal breaks a rule is a question for a lawyer.
How to check if a tipster is paid this way
Run these checks before you follow anyone's tips with real money, the way you would vet any product in the betting tools overview:
- Read the link before you tap it. Hover over it, or press and hold on a phone. A long code after a question mark, a link that passes through another site first, or a different link for each bookmaker means the click is being counted for someone.
- Look for the disclosure where you would see it first: beside the tip, not at the foot of a profile. A bare "spon" or "collab" tells you almost nothing.
- Check the quoted price against two or three other bookmakers before you bet. A tipster who always quotes one bookmaker, even when it is shorter, is routing you rather than finding you the price.
- Notice sign-up pressure. Under the national framework, a licensed online wagering provider may not offer a credit, voucher, reward or other benefit as an incentive to open an account, or to refer someone else to open one. That is measure 4, in place since 26 May 2019 (26 November 2019 in NSW), so a "join through my link for a bonus" pitch is a reason to look hard at where the link goes.
- Look the bookmaker up on ACMA's register of licensed providers, and stop if it is not there. The licence check guide shows how to read the register.
- Ask the tipster which bookmakers pay them, and whether it is per sign-up or a share of what followers lose. A straight answer is a good sign, and a dodge is an answer too.
Walk away from a tipster who links to a site that is not on the register, or who will not say who pays them.
Choosing records over promises
Promises cost nothing to make: "8 winners from 10", "up every month", a screenshot of one big collect. A record can be checked. It shows every tip, published before the event, with its time, the price available then, the stake and the result, losers included. How to check a tipster record walks through those checks, and fake tipster red flags covers the hype that tends to come with them.
An affiliate tipster needs one extra test: rework the record at the best price you could have taken, not the linked bookmaker's. A record that only shows a profit at prices you could not get tells you what the deal is worth to the tipster, not to you. Any record, however clean, shows what happened over the tips it covers. It is not a forecast of the next hundred.
Where B337's copy betting fits
B337 is not affiliated with any bookmaker, and nothing on its site rewards anyone for opening a bookmaker account. With copy betting, any signed-in account, free included, can browse tipster feeds whose records are tracked from the tips each tipster published through B337: strike rate, ROI, turnover, closing line value, how many tips have settled and when the feed started. B337 works those figures out from the tips and how they settled, so the tipster does not type them in, and a record is not an audit, a rating or a recommendation.
Copy betting is sold as the Tipping Pro plan, set up with the team. Each tipster sets the weekly price of their own feed, shown before checkout, and bets placed through B337 use credits, a per-bet usage charge. A subscription shows tips as they are published and places no bets. Copying places a bet in your own linked bookmaker account, sized by your settings, while the bot runs on your computer, which has to be on, awake and online. If the bot is not running when a tip is published, that tip is missed.
Risk: Betting involves risk. Many bookmakers restrict automated betting in their terms, and a bookmaker can limit stakes, void bets or close an account. Past results are no guarantee of future results, prices can move between a tip and your bet, and there is no guarantee of profit. See responsible gambling for limits and support.
For free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.