Exclusive Mr. Gamble Q&A: Interview with John Wright, Co-Founder of StatsDrone

In this edition of Mr. Gamble Q&A, our CMO Paul Puolakka sat down with John Wright, the Co-Founder of StatsDrone, a leading affiliate data and analytics platform transforming how affiliates and operators manage performance metrics in the iGaming industry.

With over two decades of experience in iGaming and affiliate marketing, John has witnessed and shaped the evolution of the space. From his early days as a professional gambler and affiliate manager to building a SaaS platform trusted by thousands, his journey is a testament to innovation, resilience, and a relentless pursuit of improvement.

We dive into his story, the origins of StatsDrone, insights into affiliate marketing’s future, and a look at what’s next for one of the most respected tech platforms in iGaming.

From Professional Gambler to iGaming Innovator: John Wright’s Path to StatsDrone

1. John, You’ve been in iGaming and affiliate marketing for over 20 years, how did you first get started in this industry?

I got into the industry almost accidentally. I had a friend that went to university for engineering and we were in different schools. He was telling me about him learning card counting and making money playing blackjack. I thought it was ridiculous. Then he said he switched to bonus hunting online and making even more. I didn’t believe him until one day he told me that he just ordered a BMW M3 Roadster.

At this point, I had enough and learned basic blackjack strategy at the infamous Wizard Of Odds website. I’ve not looked back since.

2. You’re Canadian, so ice hockey must be in your DNA, what’s your favorite hockey team? Do you follow sports betting as well?

When it comes to NHL, I’m like Rob Lowe wearing the NFL hat. I hate to admit it but I became this way when I felt betrayed by my Toronto Maple Leafs for having bad management. It is very difficult to cheer for a team that not only had bad management, but makes a lot of money no matter how many years the team goes without a Stanley Cup.

I want them to win but I’m excited to watch any hockey team that has good management. I like the Florida Panthers for their team, I like how the Finns play hockey and I like players like Connor McDavid.

That said, if I had to still answer the question, I’d say World Jr national team for Canada.

3. Can you explain what StatsDrone is and who it’s designed for?

StatsDrone is designed for affiliates and the idea behind it was more than just collecting stats. There were apps on the market like Nifty Stats and Stats Remote but I felt this project could be taken to another level.

4. What motivated you to co-found StatsDrone, and how did the idea come about?

I remember being an affiliate manager trying to work with affiliates that would reject my deals because another casino offered them 70%+ revenue share deals. I knew the affiliate was going to get ripped off but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was frustrated that affiliates didn’t care about things like EPC (earnings per click).

Also I remember being an affiliate and experiencing when casinos would close or programs would change affiliate software. Your links are invalidated and I felt a stats app would be a great place for it. When I was a former Stats Remote user, I was on the app first thing in the morning, a few times in the afternoon and before bed. It had my attention all day, every day.

I wanted to make this an app that helped affiliates make more money and also avoid revenue leak.

5. How does StatsDrone differentiate itself from other affiliate tracking or SaaS tools in the iGaming space?

That isn’t easy with well respected competitors like Voonix and Routy on the market.

I would say what we are best known for is accuracy in our data and customer support in providing support for any program you want added. We have invested heavily into our company where maybe our investors look at us a bit funny. We are 13 people full time and we don’t yet have a sales or marketing person other than the content I work on.

At the time of writing this, we are nearly at 2200 affiliate programs supported that includes campaign data, postbacks and dynamic variables.

6. Could you describe a typical user of StatsDrone, both on the affiliate (publisher) side and the advertiser side?

Our users come in many different types.

We have freemium users where we launched freemium in May of this year. We have a few affiliate networks using StatsDrone to power their data retrieval. We have a few affiliate agencies using the app. Quite a few SEO affiliates and PPC affiliates is a fast growing segment for us. Dynamic variables is a feature that affiliates seem to want a lot.

We do have some advertisers that are working with StatsDrone but we are now trying to make a version where affiliate managers themselves can login. If they want to use our tools to use the BI layer to understand how their affiliates are doing, this could provide some real value to them.

Award-Winning Product: How StatsDrone Delivers Real Value to Users

7. In recent years, StatsDrone has won multiple iGaming awards. Which one was the most memorable for you, and why?

It will always be the first one. Winning iGB Affiliate for Best Tech for Affiliates in 2024 meant a lot to us. We don’t have any marketing budget other than our travel expenses to go to conferences. I do know that many people compare us to affiliate networks and even some of our competitors aren’t aware of the advanced tools that we have.

So this award I think put us on the map because I think that the iGB Awards don’t have those things out so easily. I think it is one of the most respected awards. We’ve never been in a position to sponsor anything so the award felt earned.

It really had a significant impact on the company as we got a rise of new users after that. I think it answers a lot of questions if we are good enough to consider using.

8. Are there any standout features or tools in StatsDrone that users tend to find most valuable?

We have a few but the number one feature that seems to be significant is dynamic variables. Basically you have click ID level tracking of your players. It is easier to setup than postbacks, or at least in theory it is. For programs that give you revenue data with your dynamic variables, you essentially know the player values of your players.

Changelog is one that gets a lot of attention. It is helping understand and record changes in data from your affiliate programs.

The next one I’m personally working on is analysis of the last 7 days of the month across all your programs and brands.

When I used to be an affiliate, I would always dread getting big winners at the end of the month. I felt this happened a little too frequently on some programs so now I want to analyze the data and study this further.

AI, Data, and the Future of iGaming: Insights from StatsDrone

9. How do you see iGaming affiliation evolving over the next few years?

In so many ways. I do see some bigger affiliates getting bigger but I like how small ones can exist in unique ways.

The new type of affiliate I see on the market will be streamers and app creators. Streamers is capturing attention. With apps, building products has never been easier and we are seeing our friends build player focused apps in a matter of weeks.

I mean yesterday I just asked Lovable to build me a SaaS homepage and it was done in minutes.

10. Often we focus on challenges like Google updates, what positive impacts or trends do you see shaping the future of iGaming affiliation?

I think search will always be around but the positive impacts will be that some of the lower quality affiliates will disappear. Anybody that won’t put in a good effort, shouldn’t be ranking in the first place.

11. How do AI, data analytics, and new technologies influence the affiliate marketing landscape today?

In every way.

AI makes it easier for affiliates to build player apps. AI should have a positive impact for players in both entertaining and educating. Basically all those “best casino sites” that don’t really provide any good value, they will fade. Players today have amazing things being built for them with better communities.

12. What are some common mistakes affiliates make that StatsDrone helps solve?

This isn’t easy for us to be the only solution but some affiliates will get a tracking link but not realize that there is NO DEAL attached to it. If you grab a link, you should monitor that it has clicks. At least StatsDrone makes this easier.

I see revenue leak happening everywhere and I’m trying to make our app better so affiliates can see the trends before things become a problem. If a casino lost their payment method in Canada, how would you know and what could you do about it?

We won’t know this but maybe if you had separate campaigns, we could help you detect this easier.

13. What are the key benefits for affiliates and affiliate programs when using StatsDrone?

For affiliates, saving time is the most important part along with having storage of your data. Your historical data is really part of your digital asset. That data is very valuable.

For affiliate programs at some point we’ll have some insights for them beyond just advertising. We are building an affiliate link research tool that would be useful for everyone in the industry.

14. How does StatsDrone help webmasters track their sales, commissions, and statistics more efficiently?

We simply collect all the data and standardize it across many platforms. It doesn’t matter if the software is RavenTrack, MyAffiliates, Cellxpert, Aff.Tech, Affilka, etc… Once standards are set, you can easily compare how your brands are doing.

Next we do basic calculations like earnings per click (EPC) and effective revenue share (ERS). With ERS, we can make it easier to notice if your effective revenue share is decreasing which could be a sign that a deal isn’t being honoured.

15. How does StatsDrone handle compliance, reporting, or analytics in a rapidly changing affiliate marketing landscape?

Compliance isn’t easy but one thing we are aiming to do is notify affiliates of important compliance messages. Sometimes, these urgent messages appear in your spam folder so we want to make it easier to notice these things.

16. You also host the Affiliate BI podcast, what trends or insights from your podcast do you think most affiliates and advertisers should pay attention to?

If I were an affiliate today, my podcast would be my unfair advantage. I get to ask all types of people any question and learn what makes them successful.

I would say what I learn a lot that I think iGaming could benefit more from is hearing from people that are outside the space.

I’ve had some amazing guests especially in SEO such as Mark Wright, Lily Ray and Eric Siu. I’ve also had guests from outside of affiliate marketing like Chris Walker that just make me think about the space in a different way. That is, he highlighted that most affiliates are capturing demand but there are others that create it. The creators of demand can better capture that demand too.

17. Are there any upcoming innovations or new features from StatsDrone that you’re particularly excited about?

Two features. One I’ll tell you in person when I see you next but the other I’m not shy to share more about it.

We’ve been wanting to rebuild our dataviz inside the app for a while. It hasn’t been pretty in years and it is why we’ve done more work building dataviz outside the app via Tableau.

I’m spending time working with automation tools like n8n combining it with AI and working on advanced dataviz. I think we can build a better app that doesn’t just allow affiliates to ask questions to their data via a chat app but rather it takes it one step further. Our job should be to make the viewer and analyst and this means dataviz that tells a story and gives you an actionable result.

18. Looking back on your career, what’s one lesson you’d give to someone starting in iGaming affiliate marketing today?

I’ll share two lessons that apply to myself that I could give to anybody whether in affiliation, iGaming or something else.

1. Find your passion.
2. Be the best.
   

19. What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced as an entrepreneur in this space, and how did you overcome it?

It took me 20 years to find what I was passionate about in iGaming. I did bonus hunting, pro gambling, affiliate management, building affiliate sites, SEO and design. With StatsDrone, I found where I belong. I went to school for engineering and I like building things and solving problems.

Now the part about “be the best”. When I was building my own affiliate sites, I never had the “be the best” mentality. I mean the pure irony is that we all write articles about the “best casino bonuses” but I didn’t go deep on how to make this topic better for the end user.

It wasn’t until building StatsDrone and getting the chance to meet every level of affiliate from the solopreneur to literally the biggest iGaming affiliates in the business. When you see the best and get a chance to ask these same questions, you know they are very competitive. They don’t just say they want to be the best, they prove it and they do it.

I think in life, not enough people try to be the best at anything. When I talk to people that put on that hat like Daniel Hansson Sokcic from Bigwinboard, he would tell me that when he had jobs before being an affiliate, he wanted to be the best.

Now that I’m running StatsDrone, I want to be the best and all of the affiliates we work with get the benefit of this.

20. What has your experience been like trying to get affiliates to use StatsDrone, and what have you learned from the process?

Trying to get affiliates to use StatsDrone is very very difficult. I honestly thought our first app was so good that affiliates would signup in droves. I’d do a few blog posts at GPWA and it would be easy and I’d make a comfortable living.

I’ve had to really learn sales and marketing. It is only until you realize how shit you are at it, that you gotta swallow your pride and put in the work.

I’m still learning how to sell and to get better at marketing so I’m constantly studying and failing along the way sucks but I’m starting to enjoy the wins.

That said, I’m glad it wasn’t easy because I have a better appreciation for SaaS founders and people that are not afraid to get uncomfortable.

I started the Affiliate BI podcast over 2 years ago as a means of trying to at least get some sales. I think it worked but not in the way I wanted but it was a great learning experience.

21. How do you balance your roles as a co-founder, product innovator, and podcast host?

Haha, maybe I don’t!

Podcasting is like a 1 hour meeting. The time it takes me to produce an episode is under half an hour and soon I’ll outsource this.

Trying to work on the innovation and product side of the business I’m truly lucky to have a business partner that makes this possible.

Darrell Helyar is the rock of the company who doesn’t get as much credit as he deserves. He does all the things that I don’t want to do which gives me the time to do the things I do enjoy. That is designing our site, working on product features or AI research.

Also I think having people on our team that are better than me at certain things is a great motivation. Our VP Product, Joe Hatch, has taught me a lot and giving me the energy and ideas to pursue data further and try to be the best version of myself.

22. Lastly, how do you approach gambling today, and are there any games you still enjoy playing

I rarely gamble these days. When I did, it was always with an advantage mindset. I only like to play in situations where I believe I’ve got a mathematical advantage or any advantage.

I think games I’d enjoy today after testing them are crash games. I get why they are popular and we haven’t had innovation in quite some time.

I do like live poker as I believe I have a slight advantage over casual players that don’t know what a tell is.

The last time I played some slots was at Casino Pickering where I had a hotel and I was given a $10 credit. I went to find a high variance game with a decent jackpot and I wanted to win something or get to $0 as fast as possible.

I somehow hit a jackpot for over $200 so that wasn’t bad for 5 minutes of effort. I immediately cashed out and called it a day.