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Link Building That Shows Up In AI Answers

When a player wants to know which casino to sign up with, or which sportsbook pays out fastest, more and more of them ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity, or read the AI answer Google now puts above the results. That answer names a few brands and cites a few sources. If you're not in it, you're not on that player's shortlist.

Ranking on Google doesn't get you in. Ahrefs' research found that most of the sources the assistants cite aren't in Google's top ten for the same question, and that how often a brand is mentioned across the web predicts whether it shows up in AI answers far better than its backlinks do. So if you're paying for players, where your brand gets mentioned now matters as much as where it ranks.

Call it GEO, generative engine optimisation, AEO, LLM optimisation or AI search optimisation. We call it AI visibility, because that's what you're actually buying: being named or cited when an assistant answers a gambling question in your market. So we've checked our publishers against what the AI answers cite for gambling searches, and we track every live placement for citations. Here's how it works and what you get.

A Small Number Of Publications Supply Most Gambling Citations

Fewer than one in ten of the gambling publishers we've checked are cited in Google's AI Overviews for real casino, betting, poker or sportsbook searches in their own market. The rest either aren't cited at all, or only for topics that have nothing to do with gambling.

Which is why the size of an agency's publisher list doesn't tell you much. Ten thousand sites nobody has checked is just a long list. What you actually want to know is which publications the assistants use for gambling questions in your market, and whether the agency can show you.

Most of the cited publishers we've found so far are in the US and UK. The list is shorter in our other markets, and we keep checking because the assistants change their sources all the time.

General citation counts don't help here. A site can be cited thousands of times for software or travel questions and never once for a casino search. Domain rating doesn't help much either. Ahrefs found it a weaker signal than plain mentions.

So every publisher we put in front of you comes with its gambling AI status and the date we checked, next to its traffic in your market, DR and price.
Casino link building publisher placements

What Every Placement Reports

Before you approve a placement you see the publisher's traffic in your market, its DR, its price, and whether it's cited in AI answers for gambling searches, with the date we checked.

Once it's live we check every month that the link is still there, followed and indexed, and whether the article has been cited in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Google's AI Overviews or AI Mode. We also check whether Claude cites it for the questions we track for you. You get the assistants and the dates.

And every month we run twenty questions your players would actually ask an assistant before they sign up, across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features, and show you which brands and sources come up and whether yours is one of them.

Links And Mentions

Some placements link to your page, which still moves rankings and feeds Google's own AI features. Some just mention your brand in the article with no link, because the assistants pick up the mention either way. Most campaigns use a mix.

Every placement is priced per site before you approve anything, and written to the same standard as the rest of our casino and gambling link building. We place around 300 links a month across 30 publications in 20 markets, for operators and affiliates.

What The Data Does Not Promise

Our publisher check is a snapshot. AI answers change constantly, and a publication that's cited today can drop out next month. We re-check, we date every check, and we don't promise that any page or brand will be cited.

The assistants rarely link straight to an operator, so the value shows up as awareness: more branded searches, and players turning up already knowing your name, rather than a referral line in your analytics.

None of this replaces rankings. Google's AI features still rely on them, and the pages that bring in first-time depositors still need to rank. AI visibility is something you do as well, not instead.

The data is also strongest where we have the most publishers, which is the US and the UK. In other markets we'd rather tell you the list is short than pad it out.
Link building campaign delivery process

Questions Operators And Affiliates Ask About AI Visibility

What is GEO for iGaming?

GEO, generative engine optimisation, is getting your brand into the answers ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews give. Some people call it AEO or LLM optimisation. For an iGaming brand it comes down to two things: being written about on the publications those assistants already cite for gambling questions, and having pages on your own site that say something specific enough to be quoted. The first is what we do. The second is in your hands.

How do I get my casino or sportsbook mentioned by ChatGPT or Claude?

Get written about on the publications those assistants already cite for gambling questions in your market, with your brand named in the text, and make the claims on your own site specific enough to be worth repeating. You need both.

Do backlinks help with AI visibility?

Less than mentions do. Ahrefs looked at tens of thousands of brands and found web mentions a much stronger match for AI Overview presence than backlinks. A link still helps you rank, and rankings still matter inside Google's AI features, but the mention is what the assistant actually reads.

Which AI platforms matter for gambling brands?

Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, because they sit on top of Google search. Then ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, because that's where players ask questions directly. They all pick sources differently, so you can be visible in one and missing from another.

Does ranking well on Google get me into AI answers?

Inside Google's own AI features, mostly yes. In the standalone assistants, mostly no. Ahrefs found most of the links cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot weren't in Google's top ten for the same question.

Can you guarantee my brand will be cited?

No. The assistants change their sources constantly and nobody outside those companies controls what they cite. What we can show you is which publications are cited for gambling searches right now, whether your articles have been cited, and whether your brand comes up for the questions that matter to you.

How do you know which publications AI cites for gambling?

We check each publisher against the gambling searches that trigger an AI Overview in its market, and record which searches it's cited for and when. We don't rely on general citation counts on their own, because they tell you nothing about gambling.

See Which AI-Cited Publishers Fit Your Markets

Send us your markets and target pages and we'll show you the publishers in the AI-cited tier that fit, with prices and the date each one was checked, before you commit to anything.

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