The 20th edition of the iGB affiliate awards 2026 has been and gone. The ceremony wrapped on 2 July at The Shard - twenty-one winners, two double winners, and a two-year champion dethroned.
So what does it actually mean for your 2027 plan? That’s the interesting part. This year’s class was less a trophy handout than a preview of where affiliate money is heading next.
The 20th edition: what happened in London
The iGaming affiliate awards ceremony 2026 closed out iGB L!VE on the 31st floor of The Shard. The Aqua Shard - the dining room at the top of Western Europe’s tallest building - hosted a James Bond-themed finale.
iGB L!VE 2026 ran 1-2 July at ExCeL London with 15,000+ attendees and 200+ exhibitors, and the awards were its grand finale. PartnerMatrix was the headline sponsor; twenty-one winners took trophies across five category groups. iGB’s winners report has the full official list.
Missed the iGB affiliate London night? Still worth reading. Not every trophy matters - but a few of them really do.
The winners that matter for your strategy
Creator and streaming became a discipline of its own. Brian Christopher and BetMGM took a double - Affiliate Campaign of the Year and Best Streaming - while Hub Affiliations won Programme/Network Campaign of the Year for a creator-powered live streaming rollout. JungleAff won Best Newcomer. The class now has an entire shelf for creator traffic.
AI and platform tech took the trophies, too. Blask won both Innovator of the Year and Rising Star - the judges called out its fight against parasite SEO - on top of its 2025 Best Tech win. TAG Media’s First Look Games picked up this year’s Best Tech, and ReferOn took Best Affiliate Management Platform.
Regional beat generic. Norwegian site Kongebonus dethroned Gambling.com Group in Best Casino, ending a two-year run, with Kasinoseta.com highly commended. Novi Affiliates took Best Affiliate Programme for a localised, data-driven push through Brazil’s regulatory transition into LatAm. And the lifetime award, Affiliate Idol, went to Alessandro Valente of Super Afiliados - Brazil’s affiliate hub. Three trophies, three local markets. That’s the pattern.
Defences still happen. Worldpokerdeals won Best Poker for a second year running, WhichBingo defended Best Bingo, and Casino Guru took the Safer Gambling Initiative for the fourth year straight. Coolbet Partners also won the first-ever Best New Programme - a debut category.
What the 2026 class signals for your 2027 strategy
These are the iGaming affiliate trends 2027 will be built on - and the five that matter most for your portfolio.
Treat creator traffic like a channel, not a stunt. Build 2027 creator partnerships the way you’d build any traffic source: recurring, measured, inside your P&L.
Expect hybrid to be the default deal. In Track360’s 2026 report, hybrid structures led new contracts at 41% - ahead of pure RevShare (33%) and pure CPA (26%) - and its 2027 base case pushes past 45%. Average regulated-market CPAs sit at $145 and drift toward $155-165. Walk into 2027 negotiations knowing what a hybrid mix looks like - we break down how to negotiate iGaming affiliate deals when the rate card doesn’t fit.
AI is moving from content to operations. The tech trophies went to the tools that fight parasite SEO and manage programmes at scale - the operational end, not the review-writing end. Read the AI tools powering an iGaming operational stack.
Localisation is the growth edge. Track360 has regulated-Brazil CPAs clustering at $60-120 - below the regulated average, but it’s where the volume is heading. Localised offers won Best Programme for a reason.
Responsible gambling is a differentiator, not overhead. Casino Guru’s fourth straight win says the industry rewards it publicly. Expect RG in deal terms next year - and know the difference between NGR and GGR before you sign.
Where the industry goes from here
The next iGB L!VE lands 7-8 July 2027 at ExCeL London, with the awards as its grand finale again - dates on the official iGB L!VE site. The numbers keep moving: Track360’s base case has affiliates delivering 40-42% of new depositing players in 2027, up from 38% in 2026. The iGaming industry awards have become the annual read on where affiliate money is going - and this year’s iGB affiliate awards 2026 class pointed at creator, AI, and local markets.
If you want more of that read as it develops, the Paynura news desk covers affiliate strategy every week.
Turn Award-Winning Insight Into Real Affiliate Revenue
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