Should PR in iGaming Be Free?

If you were a fly on the wall at iGamingToday between 8:00 and 10:00 every morning, you would see our inbox filling up with press releases.

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A new slot launch. A sponsorship deal. A senior hire. An investment round. A new marketing campaign. Or what is, in practice, damage control disguised as news.

The common denominator is that most of it comes from the same PR agencies that dominate the iGaming industry.

When we launched iGamingToday, we published a large amount of PR content. It was a natural way to build content, and at the time there were far fewer media outlets covering the industry. For nearly two years, we published press releases free of charge.

Today, the landscape looks very different.

The number of websites publishing iGaming news has exploded, and almost all of them receive the same press releases. The result is predictable: the same stories appear over and over again across dozens of publications. When a story gains traction, it is often search algorithms—not editorial judgment—that determine who wins.

The actual news value is frequently limited.

And that is where the problem begins.

When Did PR Become Advertising?

At its core, public relations is about creating stories that are interesting enough for independent media to cover voluntarily. The credibility comes from the fact that coverage is earned, not purchased.

But much of what arrives in our inbox today is neither journalism nor news.

It is promotion.

That does not mean the content lacks value. Many announcements are relevant to the industry. But a company describing its own product update as “groundbreaking” does not automatically make it newsworthy.

A useful test is simple: would the story still be interesting if the company name were removed from the headline?

Over the past six months, we reviewed hundreds of press releases submitted to our editorial team. In our assessment, roughly 70% would be more accurately classified as advertising or marketing than as news.

That distinction matters.

Newsworthy stories still deserve editorial coverage. Regulatory developments, major acquisitions, significant financial results, original industry data, and genuinely impactful business decisions are all examples of stories that can stand on their own editorial merit.

Promotional announcements are different. Their primary purpose is commercial.

And when the purpose is commercial, it is reasonable to ask why distribution should be free.

Everyone Gets Paid—Except the Publisher

The interesting thing is that PR already costs money.

Operators, suppliers, and other companies pay agencies to develop stories, create content, and distribute their messaging. There is nothing wrong with that.

But once the content reaches publishers, there is often an expectation that publication, editing, and distribution should happen at no cost.

That is a strange model.

The value chain generates revenue for almost everyone involved, except the platform expected to provide the audience.

This is not a criticism of PR agencies. Many create significant value for their clients, and some publishers likely generate far more value from these relationships than we do. Different business models produce different outcomes.

But when we evaluated the resources required to process, edit, publish, and distribute press releases against the traffic, engagement, and commercial value they generated, the numbers simply no longer made sense for us.

The Sustainability Problem

The broader issue is sustainability.

If media companies are expected to function as free distribution channels for commercial content, fewer resources remain available for producing original reporting, analysis, and editorial coverage.

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We are already seeing signs of this across the industry.

Competition for attention continues to increase. AI is making content production cheaper and faster. More outlets are competing for the same stories and the same audiences.

As a result, many iGaming media businesses are under pressure to evolve their business models.

Over the next 12 months, I expect a number of today’s iGaming publications to either disappear entirely or shift toward affiliate-driven models. Not because affiliate businesses are inherently better, but because the economics of traditional industry publishing are becoming increasingly difficult to justify.

There is nothing wrong with that reality.

But we should be honest about why it is happening.

The Best PR Often Comes From Affiliates

Ironically, some of the strongest PR campaigns in igaming, we see come from affiliates.

They cannot rely on brand recognition or assume coverage will happen automatically. They have to create stories that are genuinely interesting.

They invest in data. They focus on unique angles. They look for insights that benefit readers, not just themselves.

They understand that promotion alone is rarely enough.

The story has to create value for everyone involved.

That is how PR is supposed to work.

Why We Changed Our Approach

In an ideal world, earned and paid media coexist.

Great stories should always have the opportunity to earn editorial coverage. That remains true at iGamingToday.com today and will remain true in the future.

But when companies spend significant budgets on PR distribution while publishers are expected to provide editorial resources and audience access for free, it is reasonable to question whether the model is sustainable.

We published press releases free of charge for nearly two years. If the model had worked for us, we would still be doing it.

That is why, in May, we decided to stop publishing press releases from PR agencies unless there is a commercial agreement that also creates value for the platform distributing the content.

This does not mean we have stopped covering company news.

Stories with genuine editorial value will continue to receive editorial coverage.

What we are no longer willing to be is a free distribution channel for commercial messaging.

Some people understand that decision. Others do not.

For us, it comes down to focus. We want greater control over what we publish, less time spent processing promotional content, and more time invested in stories that provide value to readers. And we believe that if publishers create value, they should share in it.

Because if the industry wants a diverse media ecosystem, it must also accept that distribution has value.

The alternative is fewer independent publishers, less original reporting, and more companies forced into alternative business models simply to survive.

And when there are fewer places left to distribute a message, distribution only becomes more expensive.

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PR is not free.

The only question is who gets paid for it.