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# Owned Channels Win as Advertising Bans and Tax Kill Paid Media
- URL: https://www.igamingnews.biz/owned-channels-regulatory-squeeze/
- Published: 2026-09-28T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-12T05:15:52.000Z
- Description: Paid media is dying. Advertising bans in the EU, rising marketing tax in the US, and lower ROAS push operators into owned data and affiliate channels.
- Author: iGamingNews Editorial Desk
- Tags: Growth & Marketing, Growth Strategy, Regulations, Marketing, Affiliates

*Image credit: Original illustration*

**Operators are abandoning paid-media acquisition in favor of owned channels (first-party data, CRM, affiliate networks) as regulatory restrictions narrow and economics collapse.** Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands have each tightened untargeted advertising rules; Illinois and other US states have added marketing taxes. The ROAS math on paid media has flipped.

The baseline economics: before the tax wave, an operator could spend $1.25 on paid media to acquire a $1 LTV player and break even or profit on volume. That $0.25 margin absorbed creative, bidding, and channel margin. Today, a 25-cent-per-wager tax in Illinois and a 30% top rate on GGR make that acquisition math negative. More customers at a lower LTV margin means the best option is the cheapest one: owned channels.

## Where the spend actually moved

Belgium's restrictions (ban on untargeted ads, effective Feb 2023, with 2028 shirt-sponsorship phase-out) cut the ROI on general-audience campaigns 40-60%. Operators redirected that budget to owned email, SMS, and loyalty-tier reactivations, where no untargeted restriction applies. Germany's 6-21h media blackout and influencer-partnership ban (GlueStV, in force 2021-present) pushed spend from broadcast and affiliate influencers into owned-audience newsletters and app push. The Netherlands' complete ban on untargeted ads (2022-) is the clearest signal: not a single FanDuel or DraftKings campaign reached a Dutch bettor via paid search or social in the last 18 months.

Italy's Dignity Decree (2023-present) took a different vector: hard bans on free bets and bonuses paid for via paid media, not the ads themselves. The effect was identical: every euro an operator was spending on paid-media customer acquisition at a loss now goes to owned-channel retention and win-back.

## Affiliates become full partners, not traffic brokers

The shift reframes affiliate economics. When paid media was the dominant channel, affiliates competed on cost per install and click. Now, as first-party data becomes the scarce asset and the owned channel becomes the retention layer, the best affiliates are the ones that own their own audiences: Better Collective's FanReach (50M+ sports fans across owned media and social), Catena Media's marketplace (where Better Collective bought majority stake), and Gambling.com's owned newsletter list.

Operators are moving from cost-per-acquisition (pay per click) to revenue-share deals with these owned-audience partners: 30-40% of the player's GGR, rather than $0.50 per click. That deal structure inverts the incentive. The affiliate now wins by LTV, not volume, and an affiliate that spends money building an owned audience at a lower ROAS sees a payoff when it monetizes that audience at GGR-share rates.

## The inside-out operators pull further ahead

Entain's owned-brand investments (Ladbrokes, Coral, Bwin, Party) and Flutter's own-media spend (The Unspun newsletter, FanDuel TV, sports-data partnerships) look less like brand vanity and more like insurance. An operator that owns a media channel that reaches 10M sports fans monthly can acquire at cost-of-goods (email domain + SMS list, roughly 5-10% of media spend) and never pays the tax or advertising-restriction overhead.

The downside is concentrated risk: an operator tied to one owned-media property (a newsletter, an app, a sponsorship) faces the same dependency risk as a supplier. The upside is owning the data, owning the audience, owning the distribution. This is why the largest operators are all investing in media properties now instead of just buying media.

## The long-tail losers and the regulatory arbitrage

Smaller operators and white-labels that cannot afford to build owned channels are moving to: lower-margin affiliate deals (40-50% revenue share, vs. the 30-40% the majors pay); higher cost-per-customer via the affiliate middlemen; or geographic shifts to regions where the regulatory burden is lighter (Africa, Latin America, unregulated US states). Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Illinois all still allow paid-media sports betting ads with no explicit untargeted ban, so a small operator can acquire there at a still-positive ROAS and then move the customer to a licensed site in Europe once the Visa/Mastercard rail clears. The arbitrage is regulatory timing, not media.

The consolidation in play: big operators with owned media win; mid-tier operators consolidate onto a few high-LTV affiliates and accept lower volume; small operators move offshore or geographic-shift.