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Affiliate Interviews: Toni Halonen, Co-founder & CEO of Good Game

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Affiliate Interviews: Toni Halonen, Co-founder & CEO of Good Game

Good Game is an iGaming lead generation company based in Malta. Good Game differentiates itself from its competitors by concentrating only on a handful of sites, focusing on user intent and creating recognisable brands from these few sites. Long-term value for the user and partners has been the key to their success in the Finnish casino affiliate market.

Name: Toni Halonen

Age: 34

Hometown: Ilomantsi, Finland

Living in: Malta

Favourite Food: Traditional Finnish home cooking, Japanese, Indian, Thai

Must-Read Book: The Lord of The Rings, The War of Art

Job Title: Co-founder & CEO

Hi Toni, tell us and our readers a little bit about Good Game. How did your career start in the industry?

I’ve always been fascinated by all sorts of games, be it sports, computer games, board games or gambling. I opened my first online casino account when I turned 18 and started dabbling with online poker around 2004.

After finishing my studies in 2008, I started thinking what I should do for a living and it was then that I came across poker affiliation. The idea of having my own site came to me in 2008, but it took one year of the “real working life” before I jumped into playing poker professionally and chasing my affiliate dream. 🙂

Luckily I wasn’t alone in this, because my childhood friend, Ville Sissonen, also played online poker and showed an interest in affiliation. Our half-serious, half-joke motto in the beginning was: “maximising the passive income”. 🙂 Passwords to our affiliate accounts were always something like “BuyM3rc3d3s2010” back in the day, haha. I still don’t have a Mercedes, but Ville bought his first this year. (The passwords have since been changed, so no point trying to log in. 😉 )

Good Game was established in Malta in 2011 by me and Ville. We came to Malta to play online poker professionally and build affiliate sites on the side. The affiliate business only really started to pay off after our Head of SEO, Jussi Kauppinen, joined the company in 2013. During that time, we also began concentrating only on casino affiliation.

We sold our then main domain in 2015 and went all-in with the money from the first sale straight into building our next project – this time in an actual office 🙂 and with a team of ten people. That project came to an end at the beginning of this year when our main casino site was bought. Now we’re concentrating solely on our UK project.

Explain your current UK project, Bojoko.com, in one sentence.

Airbnb for online casinos.

What makes it different from other casino affiliate sites based on player communities, casino reviews and social proof?

The biggest difference from our competitors is that Bojoko allows casinos and game suppliers to create their own reviews, and publish their own offers and game reviews. This way they can control their brand (tone of voice, design etc.) beyond their own website and ensure that affiliate marketing for their brand is done according to the UK Gambling Commission’s standards.

Casinos and game suppliers have understood this concept well. New casinos have been especially keen on listing themselves on Bojoko.

What’s the reason behind launching Bojoko? In other words, why does Bojoko exist?

There are a couple of reasons why we’ve built Bojoko. First of all, we wanted to minimise the role of an affiliate in everything the user sees and interacts with on the site. Secondly, we see a big gap in how iGaming is consumed compared to other industries operating online. Selecting, playing and transfering money to casinos could be a lot more fluid and safer than it is now.

Our purpose is to build tools for Bojoko users, which they can then use to create this more fluid, safer vision of iGaming. We want to positively transform the iGaming user experience. This way we can establish casino games as an acceptable mainstream pastime too.

How do you see the UK market?

It’s certainly more competitive than the Finnish casino affiliation market and there are many more established brands which are almost non-existent in Finland. It’s a good challenge to build a site for a large market.

Tell us one change that you want to see in the online gambling industry?

I’d like to see all forms of online gambling becoming as accepted in the mainstream as lotteries are. Offering more user-centric products and safer gambling will move the needle to the right direction. There are good initiatives underway in the UK in these two areas, although I’d like to see us, the gambling companies, driving this change and not relying or waiting for regulators to do it. There’s a much bigger pie waiting to be shared in the long run if iGaming becomes a widely accepted and respected industry.

Do you have any advice for newbies who are looking to venture into casino affiliation?

You should constantly ask yourself questions which reveal what kind of person you are. This helps you find the values and ideals you want to push forward in the industry you’re working in. It will also boost your motivation immensely and endow you with a more holistic approach to building your business.

What do you think will be the biggest trends in iGaming in 2018?

Regulation is one, for sure. It will bring new rules to online gambling once again, but it also brings predictability (such as in Sweden) and new markets (US sports betting) to the table. Predictability and new markets are great things for the entire online gambling industry.

What other new things can we expect from Good Game and Bojoko in the second half of 2018?

Bojoko has just rolled out a new tool which helps users tremendously in their casino selection. The tool is attached to our casino lists and lets users filter and sort online casinos easily with over 30 different data points so you can really get to the one casino that satisfies all your requirements. Just like hunting for the perfect vacation home on Airbnb.

In the coming months, we’ll be focusing on bringing more user features like this to Bojoko. They will help users mainly in two ways:

  • Selecting online casinos more quickly and easily
  • Interacting with other Bojoko users in our community

If you find this interesting, the best way to stay tuned to Bojoko and join in the fun is to sign up on the site.

Affiliate Success

ReferOn Shortlisted for Two EGR B2B Awards 2026 Following Record Platform Growth

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ReferOn Shortlisted for Two EGR B2B Awards 2026 Following Record Platform Growth

ReferOn, the data-driven affiliate management platform, has been shortlisted in two categories at the EGR B2B Awards 2026: “Affiliate Software Supplier” and “Full Service Platform of the Year (under 5 years)”.

These nominations reflect ReferOn’s rapid evolution from a fast-growing platform into a mature affiliate management solution trusted by operators seeking greater scalability, automation, and operational control.

Solving Affiliate Management Complexity at Scale

Over the past year, ReferOn has focused on solving one of the industry’s most persistent challenges: managing affiliate programmes efficiently at scale. By automating key affiliate management processes and transforming fragmented data into actionable insights, the platform enables operators to scale partner programs more efficiently while maintaining full visibility and control.

Turning Data Into Faster Decisions

As platform capabilities expand, Refie serves as an intelligent UX layer that makes complex data instantly understandable. By translating backend logic into intuitive visual guidance, it helps users move faster, make better decisions, and spend less time navigating reports.

By translating technical precision into intuitive visual feedback, Refie eliminates the need to dig through dense reports, guiding users toward real-time performance and faster decision-making. It moves beyond simple functionality; it’s about giving teams their time back by making complex data instantly readable.

Alex Bukin, CEO at ReferOn, commented: “These nominations reflect the momentum behind ReferOn’s evolution into an award-winning platform built for operators who refuse to compromise between sophistication and usability. We’re proud of how far we’ve come, but even more excited about the opportunities ahead.”

The winners will be announced at the EGR B2B Awards ceremony, taking place on June 3 at City Central, HAC, in London.

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Affiliate Success

TAG Media and Gamblitude Launch affie.ai

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TAG Media and Gamblitude Launch affie.ai

The AI-Powered Affiliate Manager Assistant Set to transform Affiliate Management in iGaming

TAG Media and Gamblitude have launched affie.ai, a guided decision-making engine built for iGaming affiliate managers. It combines TAG Media’s 150+ years of collective affiliate management experience with Gamblitude’s operator-grade data and analytics platform.

affie.ai will make its debut at SBC Summit Malta (28–30 April), where affie.ai’s Elaine Gardiner, Alana Weldon and Wojtek Sznapka will be demonstrating the platform to operators interested in becoming one of the first five launch partners.

The Problem affie.ai solves

Affiliate management sits at the centre of operator acquisition strategy. It demands financial judgement, negotiation skill, data literacy and market knowledge. Yet there is no industry-standard training, no widely accepted playbook and no safety net when a commercial decision goes wrong.

The data is there. What’s missing is consistent, effective interpretation. With time, an experienced affiliate manager may know what a declining CPA trend means in a specific market or when a revenue share deal needs renegotiating. A less experienced one may not – and that gap costs operators money, talent retention and competitive ground.

Even for experienced affiliate managers, having the requisite time and patience with convoluted systems and tools to spot gaps and opportunities, even ad hoc, is progressively rare, further limiting their ability to achieve sustainable growth within their affiliate programme.

By encoding proven affiliate management expertise directly into their daily workflow, affie.ai gives affiliate managers the ability to make decisions grounded in real programme data and industry best practice, positioning them for true proactivity with their affiliate partners.

What is affie.ai?

affie.ai is a guided decision-making engine, not a dashboard and not a tracking platform. It is trained on real affiliate programme performance data and built on the strategic frameworks TAG Media has applied across 50+ programme launches over the past decade.

On the data side, Gamblitude, founded by former STS chief technology officer Wojtek Sznapka and former STS chief sportsbook officer Piotr Cerlak, provides the analytical backbone: a cloud-native data layer purpose-built for iGaming operators.

The result is that affie.ai provides affiliate managers with specific, data-informed recommendations on deal structures, partner performance, programme optimisation and commercial risk insights, removing the time spent and consistency required in pulling reports, second-guessing spreadsheets to build progressive performance.

For operators, affie.ai delivers measurable reductions in programme management overheads, faster onboarding of new affiliate managers, institutional knowledge that stays in the business regardless of team changes and the agility to make rapid commercial decisions to positively impact the bottom line. affie.ai gives affiliate managers the power of proactivity.

Human Relationships, Sharper Decisions

Affiliate management is a relationship business. Trust between manager and affiliate drives long-term value – no tool replaces that.

affie.ai removes the noise around those relationships. Instead of debating whether a deal is commercially sound, the affiliate manager already has the answer and can focus on the conversation. affie.ai provides human-led decisions with AI-led precision, built on real data, not assumptions.

Elaine Gardiner, Co-Founder of affie.ai says: “After 17 years managing affiliate programmes for operators including Cherry Casino, Ninja Casino and Rizk, I know what good decision-making looks like in this role and I know how rarely it’s supported by the right tools. affie.ai takes the strategic thinking our team applies every day and makes it available on demand and at pace: specific to your programme, specific to your data and ready when the affiliate manager needs it.”

No Strings Attached Six-Week Trial – Five Places

affie.ai is offering five operators an exclusive six-week trial. No fees. No lengthy onboarding. Operators connect their affiliate programme data and their affiliate team uses the platform to obtain new insights on their own numbers, enabling faster commercial decisions on deals to build growth. To book a meeting, email [email protected] or visit www.affie.ai to register your interest in using affie.ai to build affiliate programme growth.

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Affiliate Success

ReferOn Shortlisted for “European Corporate Services Supplier” Category at EGR EUROPE Awards 2026

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ReferOn Shortlisted for “European Corporate Services Supplier” Category at EGR EUROPE Awards 2026

ReferOn, the next-gen affiliate management platform, has been named on the EGR Europe Awards 2026 shortlist in the “European Corporate Services Supplier” category, recognising the platform’s solutions that help real operators with their operations and growth.

Continuing 2025’s Momentum

The nomination reflects a busy 2025 for ReferOn, one that was highlighted by significant product updates, rapid growth, and an ascent to becoming one of the most recognised affiliate management platforms in the industry.

Going into the new year, the ReferOn team has ambitious plans to accelerate this positive momentum by scaling alongside its growing partner base with advancements to its product vision around clarity, transparency, and ease of use. The EGR Europe Awards 2026 marks a pivotal start to 2026, and an award win demonstrates that the platform’s direction truly resonates with operators and affiliate managers worldwide.

Refie’s Human Impact

Refie, the platform’s human layer, transcends a mere surface-level companion. It hops around dashboards and workflows, providing relevant assistance, such as fixing reward logic, identifying anomalies, and making suggestions to the user.

In 2026, ReferOn plans to enhance Refie’s functionality with advanced platform gamification, engaging users and transforming how affiliate managers interact with their day-to-day operations. These developments will pave the way for personalised, smart intelligence on the platform and set an industry standard for affiliate tech.

Alex Bukin, General Manager, commented on the nomination and plans for 2026, “ReferOn made great strides in the past year, with major product developments, key recruitments, and a rapidly growing partner base. With this growth, our expectations have risen, and we want to establish ourselves as a platform that accelerates affiliate tech across the board. Being nominated for the ‘European Corporate Services Supplier’ category solidifies our ambition and is a meaningful start to our new year. With Refie driving more innovation, we look forward to driving our goal of transparency, clarity, and customer-facing features even further.”

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