There is probably no better way to start this blog than by explaining how I ended up in iGaming in the first place. Mostly because I ended up here completely by accident.
Almost ten years ago, I applied for a job in “gaming” because I thought it had something to do with video games. Yes. Really.
At the time, I was in my early twenties and, like many people in their early twenties, I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with my life. I tried a little bit of everything: journalism, customer support, accounting, work with a charity organisation. At one point I even wanted to be an actress. There wasn’t exactly a master plan.
Eventually, I found an internship in Belgium focused on marketing and SEO. I loved it, I loved Belgium, and for a while I was convinced that this was where my future was going to be. The only problem was that I still had around six months left of my master’s degree, so I had to return to Bulgaria, finish university and then, in my head at least, go straight back to Belgium.
I just needed a job for those six months. Nothing serious.
Then I saw an advertisement: marketing, account management, gaming.
Anyone who knows me knows that I play quite a lot of video games, so naturally my brain went immediately to Blizzard, Riot Games, Ubisoft and all the other companies a nerd in her twenties would get excited about.
Marketing AND gaming? Perfect. This was clearly meant for me.
There was just one tiny misunderstanding: they didn’t mean that kind of gaming.
Wait… online casinos?
At that point, I genuinely knew almost nothing about online casinos or sports betting. I went to the interview and the person who would later become my boss started explaining brands, casinos, affiliate marketing and the general structure of the industry.
I remember basically thinking: Oh. This is not what I thought I applied for.
But then again, I only needed a job for six months. The offer was good for the time, so I accepted.
And then something happened that I hadn’t planned for at all: I absolutely loved the industry.
I loved learning how the business worked. I loved the commercial side of it, the brands, the marketing, the partnerships and the strange little ecosystem behind everything the player actually sees. Very quickly, my temporary six-month job stopped feeling temporary.
I also became completely obsessed with one particular brand: Mr Green.
Why Mr Green? Honestly, I couldn’t even give you a sophisticated explanation now. I just loved the brand. And because ambition has never exactly been one of my weaknesses, I created a very simple career plan: I would finish my six-month contract, move to Malta and become an Affiliate Manager at Mr Green.
Very simple. Completely realistic. Obviously.
Looking at it now, I appreciate the confidence of younger Anna. The experience? Barely any. The plan? Move countries and join one of the industry’s best-known brands. No problem.
Malta, here I come
I created my first LinkedIn account, started contacting recruiters and sent my CV to Mr Green. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing. Apparently enthusiasm was not, on its own, a sufficient qualification.
But something important had already happened: I no longer wanted to go back to Belgium. I wanted to stay in iGaming.
Through a Facebook group, I eventually found a job with a smaller casino operation in Malta and moved there. I was hired as an Affiliate Manager and Business Developer. Or at least that was the title.
In reality, the role was more along the lines of: Affiliate Manager / Business Developer / Casino Manager / Marketing Person / Whatever Else Needs Doing Today.
We had developers. We had customer support. We had an external design company and someone handling payments. And then there was me.
It was chaotic, but in hindsight it was probably one of the best ways I could have started. There was nobody sitting next to me giving me a perfect manual explaining how to become a good affiliate manager, so I read. A lot.
I listened to podcasts, read articles, went to industry events and paid attention to people who knew far more than I did. I asked questions and started building my own strategies. Would I use some of those strategies today? Absolutely not. But I’d also be slightly worried if I looked at work I did nine years ago and thought it was still perfect.
Eventually, I learned that the project was going to close and my role would disappear with it. So it was time for the next chapter.
Learning what affiliate management actually meant
My next move was to bet-at-home, and for me at the time, this felt enormous.
I was going from a small operation where I’d been doing a little bit of everything to a large and established company. More importantly, this was where I started learning what being an Affiliate Manager actually meant.
I had structure, processes and experienced people around me. I had people who could tell me when I was wrong—which, particularly early in your career, is incredibly valuable. This was where the foundation was really built.
But after around a year, I decided not to extend my contract. Things hadn’t gone quite the way I’d imagined, I’d received yet another rejection from my beloved Mr Green dream, and I started questioning whether Malta—or even iGaming—was really where I wanted to be.
So I left. I went back to Bulgaria, took a break and genuinely thought I might be done.
For about three months.
Turns out, I wasn’t done
The funny thing about leaving something is that sometimes you only understand how much you like it once it’s gone.
I missed iGaming. I missed the pace, the people, affiliation and, strangely enough, even the madness. Eventually I realised that leaving hadn’t solved anything. I didn’t dislike the industry at all. Quite the opposite. I simply hadn’t found my place in it yet.
So I went back to Malta and joined Rabbit Entertainment.
That job gave me another important piece of the puzzle. I worked with a Head of Affiliates who pushed me to look much deeper into data. Not just: “We got X number of FTDs. Great.”
I mean really looking at why we got them. What converted? What didn’t? What was the player value? What happened after acquisition? Where were people dropping out? What did the numbers actually tell us?
I became slightly obsessed with going deeper into reports, and that way of looking at performance stayed with me. It still influences how I work today.
Rabbit unfortunately wasn’t forever either. Changes in the German market hit the company hard, and eventually it was time for me to move again. From there came Blexr, where I continued building experience from the affiliate side of the industry.
And then, finally, came a moment that younger Anna would probably not have believed.
The Mr Green dream actually happened
In 2022, I joined William Hill International as Affiliate Manager for Finland.
And here is the important part: Mr Green was part of William Hill International.
So after all those applications, all those rejections, moving to Malta, leaving Malta, coming back, changing companies and at one point almost giving up on the industry completely… I finally got to work for Mr Green.
My dream actually happened.
Not in the way I had imagined it years earlier, and definitely not according to the very ambitious little career plan I had created in my head. But it happened.
There is something quite special about finally reaching something you once wanted so badly, especially when by that point you are no longer the same person who originally wanted it.
By then I had experience. I understood affiliation. I understood data, partnerships, commercial relationships and the realities of the industry much better than I had when I first sent that CV and heard absolutely nothing back.
And perhaps that was the point. Maybe I didn’t get there when I first wanted to because I wasn’t ready yet.
When I finally did, I was.
That chapter also meant a lot to me personally because it felt like closing a circle. The brand that had originally made me think, this is where I want to go, had finally become part of my actual career.
Younger Anna: mission accomplished. Eventually. ❤️🔥
From affiliate management to leadership
After William Hill International, I moved back to Bulgaria and expanded outside pure affiliate management into account management, PR and marketing.
Every role added something different. Some taught me processes. Some taught me commercial thinking. Some taught me what good management looks like. And, to be fair, some taught me what I absolutely did not want to do when I became a manager myself.
Both kinds of lessons are useful.
Then, in 2024, I joined Websa as an Account Manager. Six months later, I became Head of Account Management.
By this point, I wasn’t only responsible for my own partners anymore. I was building processes, managing people, looking at performance across markets, negotiating commercial relationships and thinking about the bigger picture of the business.
Then in 2025, something happened that made me properly look back at the previous years for probably the first time: I won the Affiliate Account/Community Manager of the Year award at the SBC Affiliate Awards.
And yes, I was extremely proud.
But the funny part was remembering the girl who had walked into an interview almost ten years earlier expecting someone to talk to her about video games. She had absolutely no idea what she was getting herself into.
So why start this blog now?
Because after almost ten years in this industry, I’ve accumulated quite a few opinions. Some popular. Some probably less popular.
I’ve seen affiliate relationships work brilliantly and I’ve watched them completely fall apart. I’ve seen fantastic operators and fantastic affiliates. I’ve also seen terrible behaviour from both sides.
I’ve negotiated deals, analysed endless spreadsheets, dealt with underperforming traffic, good traffic, questionable traffic, fraud, unrealistic expectations, market changes, compliance, management, internal politics and all the other things that don’t usually make it into the conference photos on LinkedIn.
I’ve also made mistakes myself. A lot of them.
And I think there is far more value in talking about those experiences openly than pretending every career move was part of some perfectly executed ten-year strategy. It wasn’t.
This blog will mostly be about iGaming, affiliation, account management, commercial relationships, leadership and the realities behind the numbers. Sometimes I’ll probably agree with the industry consensus. Sometimes I definitely won’t.
But everything here will come from actual experience.
And if you’re just entering the industry—or trying to figure out what your next step in it should be—I hope some of those experiences will be useful to you too.
So that’s me. Anna Arakelyan. Almost ten years in iGaming.
And somehow, all of this started because I thought I was applying for a job in video games.
iGaming – my dream, my reality.