Commissions and Independence
How a click on a bookmaker button can earn TransparentBets money, and the parts of the site that money never reaches.
On this page
Nobody pays to read TransparentBets, and you will find no banner adverts on it. Its costs are covered by bookmaker commissions, and before you click anything you are entitled to know how that works.
What happens when you click
- You press a bookmaker button. Most of them point to a
/go/address on our own domain. - Our redirect service sends you to the bookmaker, attaching a code that identifies TransparentBets as the source of the visit.
- If you open an account, the bookmaker’s affiliate programme records it against that code. Some programmes also require a first deposit before anything is counted.
- The bookmaker pays us under its agreement with us: a one-off sum when a newly registered punter makes a first deposit, a cut of the bookmaker’s takings from those punters for an agreed spell, or a mix.
- None of this costs you anything. The odds, the offer and the account terms are exactly what you would get by typing the bookmaker’s address yourself.
Prefer us not to earn from your sign-up? Open the bookmaker in a new tab by typing its address. The review will be just as useful.
Which operators we work with
We make agreements only with bookmakers licensed by the Gambling Commission to take bets from British customers, and no tracked link goes live until the Gambling Commission register confirms the brand. Agreements start and end, so we do not keep a fixed list on this page; a /go/ button in a review is the sign that a link may earn us money. If a partner’s licence lapses, its tracked links are taken down. Many bookmakers we review pay us nothing, and they are assessed the same way.
What commission cannot buy
A rating is built from what the bookmaker offers, what its small print says and how its licence history reads, following How we rate bookmakers. Our editors do not see commission rates when they score a bookmaker. No operator can pay to see a review in advance, have criticism removed or move up a table, and a partner whose offer gets worse or whose withdrawals slow down is marked down in the same way as anyone else.
Where commerce does show: if several licensed bookmakers are almost level on our criteria, the one we have an agreement with may be the one with a button. The others are still named and reviewed.
Offers we decline
Sponsored reviews, paid-for articles and “recommended” badges are not on sale here. Free bets, event tickets or presents offered to win coverage are sent back, and our testers bet with their own money. Any agreement that comes with conditions about what a review says is refused.
Your data when you click
A tracked link passes the bookmaker a code for TransparentBets, not your identity. Clicking it adds two cookies that last about 20 hours on top of the two visit cookies used on every page, as listed in our privacy policy. Once you arrive at the bookmaker, its own privacy notice applies.
Marketing rules that apply to us
Affiliate content about gambling aimed at Great Britain is treated as the operator’s advertising, so the CAP and BCAP codes, along with the marketing conditions in Gambling Commission licences, cover what we publish. In practice that means nothing designed to appeal to under-18s, no claims that betting solves money problems or brings social success, key terms shown next to every offer and safer gambling messages next to promotions. If you spot a page that falls short, tell us.
Readers come before revenue
No commission justifies anyone betting more than they can afford. Every bookmaker we link to must offer deposit limits, time-outs and GAMSTOP self-exclusion. If gambling is causing harm, the National Gambling Helpline (0808 8020 133) and BeGambleAware give free, confidential help and are independent of us. Readers who have already self-excluded should not use our pages to hunt for a bookmaker outside that scheme; we will not help anyone get around it.
Who signs the agreements
All affiliate agreements are signed by Meridune Media Group DMCC, Mazaya Business Avenue BB1, Cluster BB, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Curious whether one particular button earns us money, or suspicious that cash has bent a review? Email [email protected] and include the link. See also Before you bet and the reader agreement.