India is one of the most complex yet lucrative opportunities in global iGaming, but it’s also a full “wild west” of a market. Vasilii Gamov from Peaky Ads sat down with Craig Campbell, one of the loudest and most entertaining SEO experts out there, and the chat went everywhere — from iGaming budgeting headaches in India to messing with keywords. The full video’s on our YouTube, but here’s the short version.
About Craig
Craig’s been at this for over 20 years. He’s taken every hit Google could throw, burned and rebuilt sites, and somehow always comes back stronger. He’s spoken at SiGMA, Affiliate World, and now he’s running SEO strategy at ODIS Global — the company that basically owns the aged-domain game.
India’s Regulatory Reality
India isn’t just another growth market — it’s a billion-user gold rush with iGaming revenues forecast to smash $8.6B by 2027. But if you’re expecting a neat SEO playbook, forget it.
Craig Campbell agrees. The regulatory picture is messy, shifting state by state and game by game. Some verticals run into walls, others slide through loopholes. SEO still works the same way in theory — rank, get traffic, get players. But add in dozens of languages and local naming quirks, and Western SEO tactics start to wobble fast. One keyword works in one state, bombs in another. If you’re used to tidy, regulated markets, India will eat you alive.
On a map India looks like a small country. But India is a big big place, even the amount of different languages that are spoken within India is scary,
Despite these complexities, Craig maintains that core principles remain constant:
SEO is SEO. It doesn’t matter what field you play in. You’re asked to do a job, and you’re asked to rank for certain things. But there are laws, and there are different things to contemplate as well. It’s a mixture of everything there.
Market Economics and Player Behavior
India’s player economy also flips Western assumptions. Disposable income averages just $1,200 per year — meaning ARPU is small. But scale makes up the gap:
Players in India start with an average personal revenue of only $1,200 per year. Therefore, the revenue is going to be small if we talk about per-user revenues. However, because it’s a billion users, you have huge opportunities to get a good amount of money in this market.
Cricket dominates the cultural map, with football gaining traction. There’s hockey, badminton, volleyball too. But sports betting isn’t where the cash is. As Craig bluntly puts it, slots alone drive around 25% of traffic, with blackjack and table games close behind. So, the 80/20 principle is super clear here.
AI Content and Algorithm Differences
Craig’s blunt: if you’re spamming AI content in the U.S. or UK, don’t expect it to last. He says most projects get nuked around month four or five. But in India or other markets where Google’s algo is basically stuck in 2016 it’s a totally different story. You can run AI-heavy sites for ages and barely get touched.
I think you’re spot on when you say that AI content doesn’t necessarily work for the long term in Tier 1 countries. I firmly believe that other countries have a less aggressive algorithm and are much further behind.
“In India,” Craig says, “when everyone’s churning out AI text, even minor tweaks give you an edge.” In Tier 1, those tweaks won’t save you; in Tier 2, they can carry you far.
Surprisingly, in India, subdomains are still “the new hack”. Technically, they’re treated as separate sites, but for some reason, they inherit juice fast. Nobody knows why, but right now, it’s working:
Subdomains on aged domains appear to be ranking very quickly and very well. I should note that a subdomain is technically seen as a separate website from the root domain. However, for whatever reason, they are currently working very effectively.
Craig finished by reminding everyone: no matter how much SEO evolves, you still need links. Full stop:
SEO will always involve on-page, technical, and UX elements, all of which are super important. However, link building remains a significant component, and I don’t believe that has changed over the years.
Grey-Hat Strategies That Work
Describing the digital landscape, Vasilii put it like that:
Social networks are dominant. YouTube has half a billion users, and WhatsApp also has about half a billion. Facebook has 300 million users, and Instagram has approximately 250 million. ShareChat, a local platform similar to TikTok, has about 80 million users.
But visibility doesn’t come clean. Link building remains a critical component of SEO. It is essential for building power and authority for websites. What Craig still finds works very effectively in most markets is utilizing aged domains and similar strategies. As he puts it:
When you enter such a competitive space, you need as much leverage as you can get. This can include utilizing a domain from work you may have done over the last ten years that was later abandoned or retired. The question is, can we pick that up and utilize the power and authority it built through strategies like redirects or building out private blog networks?
And beyond traditional SEO, traffic acquisition requires creativity. You need to be quite creative with it, especially when operating in a restrictive environment. As Craig said, methods like using generic Meta ads to attract users and then redirecting them to a website can be necessary. This is because generating traffic can be difficult when contending with regulations and prohibited activities.
This is how Craig describes funnel strategies: “In the form of a quiz, luring people in to answer something like, ‘What are the top sports in India?’ The user enters the quiz or submits an answer, and is then redirected to a login or a bonus page to sign up.” The core philosophy being: “You have to get the traffic from that platform to your casino without explicitly telling users to come and gamble. The central question is, how do you do that?”
Keyword Strategy and Game-Specific Targeting
Craig says cricket’s the obvious one — people play it non-stop, so searches never end. Easy win if you’re targeting sports bettors:“Cricket was always the top sport just by default in terms of how often those guys played it.”
Craig’s advice is: exploit game-specific searches, as they are highly effective. If two teams are playing tonight, that exact matchup keyword like “India vs Pakistan live odds” will surge. Even when the match ends, the queries still deliver traffic. Operators that pull those pages down are leaving money on the table.
If I went to Ahrefs and analyzed the website, a very quick win would become apparent—something many in the casino industry understand. When a specific game is being played by two teams and listed on the sportsbook, people are actually searching for that exact game to place bets.
In casino, intent is king. Phrases like “real money roulette” convert because they filter out free-play users: «Even terms like blackjack, roulette, and poker are frequently searched. Phrases such as ‘play poker for real money’ also generate significant search volume.”
Popular Indian games also offer big opportunities:“There are many different games there. I could try to list them all, such as slots like ‘Hit Rich’ and others that are fairly popular. Games like ‘Teen Patti’ are also very highly searched.”
Conversion Optimization
Craig says that you can drive traffic all day long but if nobody signs up, it’s pointless. Conversion is the real metric. The competitive window is narrow: you’ve got about 2 seconds to catch them, so he says test everything — buttons, offers, layouts — because that’s all the time you get.
Learning from competitors is also essential: “You’ve always just got to look at the best performing websites. The answer is there. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. See what the top performers are doing — and do that kind of thing.”
Apparently, companies spend literal millions testing layouts, promos, etc. That’s how serious it is: “There’s people out there who’ve spent hundreds of thousands if not millions and millions of pounds on conversion rate optimization, trying and testing different layouts, different offers, different this, different that.” Campbell’s point: if you’re not investing here, you’re already behind.
Ranking is worthless if your page doesn’t convert, but CRO dies if you can’t rank. The craft is blending both: high-visibility and high-conversion on the same page.
“You need to get the balance between a page that ranks well and a page that converts well. So where are these things positioned on the page? That is very difficult because when the user lands on it, it’s got to be in their face. It’s got to be super easy. It’s got to be super quick.”
Craig’s closing note: research, prep, and diversify. Don’t just chase big keywords — mine long-tail, play with parasite SEO, and always be ready to pivot.
Want more?
Go stalk Craig on LinkedIn or binge his YouTube channel. And hit subscribe on Peaky Ads if you like hearing unfiltered marketing talk without the corporate sugarcoat.
