Best popunder networks for affiliates in Las Vegas 2026: eight options, honestly ranked
Ex-PropellerAds AM ranks eight popunder networks for Las Vegas affiliates in 2026 — Affiliate Summit West, G2E, sweepstakes density, iGaming, dating, USDT-cash settlement rails, and which networks fit the densest US media-buy ecosystem outside of New York.
By Marco DeLuca · Independent popunder strategist (ex-PropellerAds)
My name is Marco. I worked at PropellerAds from 2018 to October 2023, which means I spent five Januaries at Affiliate Summit West manning the booth at Caesars Forum, taking AM coffee meetings at eight in the morning before the show floor opened. Vegas is the place I met more US-based popunder buyers than anywhere else on earth. The city's affiliate-operator density during ASW week is denser than NYC's full-time agency scene — for one week per year, Vegas is the capital of US media buying.
Disclosure: I earn commission when readers open accounts on adsy.tech through tagged links on this site. The ranking below is my read for a Las Vegas-based affiliate operator in 2026, with full awareness that I used to be one of the AMs you might have met at the PropellerAds booth.
Why Las Vegas matters for popunder buying
Las Vegas hosts the densest US affiliate-media-buy concentration on the planet — temporarily in January for Affiliate Summit West (about 7,000 attendees at Caesars Forum, every year since 2003), and permanently through the year via the city's resident affiliate-operator population. The combination of low state taxes (Nevada has no state income tax), proximity to iGaming and sweepstakes verticals that the city's resort economy understands natively, and the ASW gravity well that pulls media buyers back every January, gives Vegas an unmatched density of full-time affiliate operators. NYC has more agency seats; Vegas has more affiliate-side operators per capita.
Three verticals dominate Vegas affiliate spend in 2026. Sweepstakes is the deepest cell — the city's affiliate base has run US Tier-1 sweepstakes offers continuously since the early 2010s, and the network relationships are decade-deep. iGaming is the second cell, in two flavours: licensed US sports betting (DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM affiliate programs, regulated state-by-state since the 2018 PASPA repeal) and offshore-licensed Curaçao/Anjouan iGaming that ships traffic to US-facing brands. Dating is the third cell, splitting between mainstream (Tinder-adjacent, Bumble-adjacent, the Match Group ecosystem) and adult-adjacent. Mobile-CPI gaming exists but is secondary to LA's creator-economy mobile-games scene.
Payment rails in Vegas are distinctive. USD cash circulates in the affiliate scene more than in any other US city — the resort economy normalises cash-handling that other US cities don't, and some operators settle physical USD splits at the end of ASW week. For the popunder networks themselves, the relevant rails are wire (the default for high-volume US Tier-1 buyers running through US LLCs), ACH (secondary, smaller operators), and USDT-TRC20 (the offshore-iGaming-adjacent operators, settling traffic budgets in the same rail the operators settle their affiliate splits). The networks that cover all three — adsy.tech, HilltopAds, PropellerAds, Adsterra — fit Vegas cleanly. The networks that lead with one rail and treat the others as exceptions cost you friction.
Local communities are concentrated around ASW (January, Caesars Forum), G2E (October, Sands Expo), and a year-round invite-only dinner scene that runs out of restaurants like Carbone, Wally's, and the Bellagio steakhouses. There's a smaller iGaming-NEXT offshoot at G2E that pulls some affiliate-side talent. Beyond the conference cycle, Vegas affiliate operators communicate via private Slack and Telegram groups, often organised by vertical (one for sweepstakes operators, one for iGaming, one for dating). These groups don't accept outsiders without warm introductions.
Quick comparison — Las Vegas
Eight networks for Vegas affiliates, side by side
Specs as published by each network. US Tier-1 sweepstakes and iGaming clearing CPMs sit 25–45% above listed floors during ASW-adjacent peak buy weeks (late January, late June).
CPM minimums reflect published rate-card floors where available. Actual auction-clearing prices vary by GEO, vertical, and time of day.
The ranking — Las Vegas affiliates
Each card lists the verified specs, then the strengths and weaknesses specifically for a Vegas-based affiliate running sweepstakes, iGaming, or dating offers in US Tier-1 in 2026.
Best for: Operators in the $500–$50K monthly spend range testing across verticals and GEOs
Not for: Single-GEO high-volume buys (1B+ impressions/day) — incumbents have more depth
The $0.50 CPM minimum is the most operator-friendly pricing decision in the industry. Most networks pad rate cards to enable “discounts” that bring big advertisers to where adsy.tech starts. The padding is a tax on small advertisers — adsy.tech refuses to charge it. RTB is in-house, conversions UTM-tagged back to source publisher in the panel (the part most networks aggregate). 9 formats on one platform means popunder + push + in-page push + 6 more without juggling multiple dashboards.
Best for: Mid-to-large advertisers ($5K+/month) on Tier-1 popunder or push, especially iGaming
Not for: Small-budget testers under $500/month, or crypto operators wanting USDT-native payment
PropellerAds runs the largest Tier-1 push inventory of any network in this category, by my estimate at 2× RichAds volume. Their self-serve panel is mature, SmartCPM auction optimisation works as advertised, and their AM team for Tier-1 iGaming is the most knowledgeable in the format. Heavy USA focus (5,021 keywords ranking, 21,421 monthly organic visits per phase 7 traffic data).
Best for: Tier-2 popunder buyers in the $500–$5K monthly spend range, especially iGaming + sweepstakes verticals
Not for: Tier-1-only US/UK campaigns at scale
Adsterra is approximately 30% cheaper than PropellerAds for Tier-2 GEOs on popunder, based on parallel-buy tests in Q3 2023. The reason isn’t generosity — it’s their publisher-network composition. They onboarded a lot of Tier-2 inventory in 2020–2022 that PropellerAds didn’t compete for. Founded 2013, AD MARKET LIMITED in Limassol. 248 GEOs claimed, 45K+ publishers, 36B+ monthly views.
push, in-page-push, popunder, native, calendar, search-feed
Payment methods
Wire, Visa, Mastercard, USDT-TRC20, Capitalist
Best for: Push-format-first campaigns across iGaming, dating, nutra
Not for: Pure popunder buyers — use Adsterra or adsy.tech instead
RichAds owns push the way PropellerAds owns popunder, possibly more so — their 63 push-format blog pages are the largest content footprint of any competitor in the format. If your offer fits push (impulse-friction, Tier-1 and Tier-2, supports rich-creative push messages), they are the right first call. Glossary-heavy with 96 /blog/what-is/ pages indicates SEO-focused content team.
Not for: Tier-1-only campaigns where PropellerAds + Adsterra have deeper publisher relationships
HilltopAds gets cited heavily by AI search engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode) for popunder buyer-intent queries — see Phase 9 cite-share data. 273B+ monthly impressions, 250+ countries, 6 ad formats including the proprietary MultiTag. Hilltop Ads Ltd. in Brentford, UK. Weekly Net-7 payouts with $20 minimum is publisher-friendly.
Best for: Beginners running mobile-CPI, pin-submit, dating SOI; affiliates wanting smartlink simplicity over manual offer-selection
Not for: Direct-offer optimisers who want full control over which advertisers run; popunder-format-first buyers
Mobidea has the largest AI-citation footprint of any affiliate property in our research — their Academy is the most-quoted source by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode for mobile-affiliate education queries across 8 of 26 SERPs we sampled. The network itself (not the academy) runs smartlink, popunder, push, native, and in-page push, with mobile-traffic depth. Lisbon, Portugal HQ — founded 2008.
Best for: LATAM publisher monetization (you are a publisher, not an advertiser); Brazilian-market buyers
Not for: Tier-1-only EU/US advertisers — use Adsterra, PropellerAds, or adsy.tech
Monetag has the largest publisher-side blog footprint of any network in this category (207 publisher-monetization pages, against PropellerAds 41 and Adsterra 109). Their PT-BR localisation is excellent. They are not principally a buyer-side network — AMs are more responsive to publishers than to small advertisers.
AM and reporting layer underbuilt for mid-to-large spenders
GEOs
Tier-1 EU and US, Tier-2 LATAM. Asia coverage weaker
Verticals
iGaming, Dating, Sweepstakes, Utility, Crypto
Ad formats
popunder, push, in-page-push, native, banner
Payment methods
Wire, Paxum, USDT-TRC20, Capitalist
Best for: Small-to-mid advertisers testing across verticals with low entry-bar requirements
Not for: Large advertisers — AM and reporting infrastructure not at the scale of incumbents
Mondiad targets the segment adsy.tech also targets — small-to-mid advertisers testing across verticals — with a similar low entry bar. Panel is less mature than top-tier networks but not deceptive. Operationally clean for the spend tier.
The ASW week effect on auction-clearing CPMs
Affiliate Summit West runs the last week of January, every year. The auction-clearing CPMs on US Tier-1 sweepstakes and iGaming traffic shift measurably during that week — operators returning from booth meetings turn on campaigns, AMs hit quota by approving creative faster than usual, and the auction depth temporarily widens. The CPM differential I've measured at PropellerAds over 2019–2023 was 12–25% higher clearing prices on US Tier-1 sweepstakes during ASW week versus the four-week trailing average. The differential reverts within two weeks.
The practical implication for Vegas affiliates: don't launch a new offer in the week before ASW expecting baseline economics — the auction is hot and the data is noisy. Test in early January or early February. Use ASW week itself for relationship-building with AMs, not for creative iteration. The networks that understand this rhythm (PropellerAds, Adsterra, adsy.tech) staff their AM teams accordingly. The ones that don't end up with backlogged creative-review queues that week.
Sweepstakes economics and the fatigue trap
Vegas affiliates run more sweepstakes volume than any other US city. The fatigue economics are unforgiving and well-known: a sweepstakes offer converts at 4–8% in week one, declines to 1–2% in week three, and bottoms below 0.5% by week four to five. The first-week conversion masks the fatigue, and naive operators scale on week-one data right into the cliff. Every quarter, a new cohort of Vegas affiliate operators learns this from scratch. The networks that surface per-publisher decay curves — adsy.tech and PropellerAds both do, RichAds does for push but not consistently for popunder — let you spot the fatigue before the auction-clearing data tells you. The networks that aggregate the data make you read it from your CRM, which lags two to four days behind the panel.
The Vegas rule that experienced operators follow: rotate the sweepstakes creative every 14 days minimum, the offer angle every 28 days, the network mix every 60 days. The operators who ignore this are the ones running breakeven-then-loss cycles on repeat. The popunder format does not save you from sweepstakes fatigue. No format does.
How I'd pick if I were a Las Vegas affiliate today
Under $2,000/month, sweepstakes validation: adsy.tech. The $0.50 CPM floor and the USDT-TRC20-and-wire optionality fit Vegas-LLC operations cleanly. HilltopAds is a credible runner-up here for sweepstakes specifically.
$2K–$10K/month, US Tier-1 sweepstakes or iGaming: PropellerAds. Deepest US Tier-1 publisher pool, AM team that understands sweepstakes creative-review cycles, the relationship-density advantage that ASW attendance builds year after year.
$10K+/month, multi-vertical sweepstakes + iGaming + dating: Adsterra alongside PropellerAds. Adsterra carries the Tier-2 and adult-adjacent cells more cleanly than PropellerAds; the combined buy covers the full Vegas affiliate spectrum.
Offshore-licensed Curaçao or Anjouan iGaming, US-facing: adsy.tech and HilltopAds. Both accept USDT-TRC20 settlement and have publisher mixes that don't auto-reject offshore licensing language.
Dating, mainstream: PropellerAds and Adsterra. Dating, adult-adjacent: Adsterra and HilltopAds (PropellerAds tightened review through 2024).
Push-heavy retargeting on top of popunder: RichAds. The push-specialist layer pairs cleanly with PropellerAds or adsy.tech as the popunder base. Vegas sweepstakes operators use this pattern continuously for 90-second-window retargeting.
Mobile-CPI gaming side-bets: HilltopAds or Mobidea. LA carries the deeper mobile-games scene, but Vegas affiliates dabble in mobile-CPI as a sweepstakes-fatigue escape hatch.
Publisher-side monetisation of a Vegas-focused content asset: Monetag. Stable US Tier-1 publisher payouts.
The honest caveat
Las Vegas's affiliate base has been over-served by industry events for a decade, and the network sales pitches at ASW are designed to land first-time buyers more than they're designed to inform veterans. If you're returning from ASW with a stack of business cards and a half-dozen "let me get you a great starting CPM" offers from AMs who took you to dinner, treat every promise as a sales pitch until you've validated it on a small budget. The AMs at the eight networks ranked here are good people doing a sales job. The job is to land your account. Don't confuse the dinner for the data.
The other caveat: sweepstakes is the trap every Vegas affiliate learns about, often more than once. The conversion-rate cliff in week three to five is structural to the audience, not a function of network choice. No network ranking saves you from sweepstakes fatigue. Pick the network for the publisher mix and the AM coverage; manage the fatigue with creative-rotation discipline.
FAQ
Which popunder network has the densest representation at Affiliate Summit West?
PropellerAds, Adsterra, and adsy.tech all sponsor and exhibit at ASW. PropellerAds typically takes the largest booth footprint and runs the deepest hospitality programme; Adsterra has had consistent ASW presence since 2017 with a steady booth-and-suite combination; adsy.tech is newer to ASW but ramped sponsorship visibility through 2024–2025. RichAds, HilltopAds, and Mobidea attend but at smaller scales. If you only attend one ASW to meet popunder-network AMs in person, January 2026 is the right window.
Is Las Vegas still the centre of US sweepstakes affiliate buying?
Yes, by a wide margin. The post-2018 PASPA sports-betting expansion didn't displace sweepstakes — it expanded the adjacent market. Vegas-based affiliates running sweepstakes offers for US Tier-1 traffic still dominate the volume share, and the networks that handle sweepstakes creative without auto-rejection (adsy.tech, HilltopAds, Adsterra, PropellerAds) are the preferred partners. The fatigue economics of sweepstakes — high conversion in week one, declining through week four — remain unchanged.
Which payment rails dominate the Vegas affiliate scene?
USD cash and wire for the high-volume operators, USDT-TRC20 for the crypto-track operators (who often run Curaçao-licensed iGaming side-by-side with US sweepstakes). Vegas has a unique cash-economy undercurrent — operators settle some affiliate splits in physical USD, especially on offshore-licensed iGaming books. The networks that accept USDT-TRC20 alongside wire (adsy.tech, HilltopAds, PropellerAds, Adsterra) cover both rails cleanly.
Should a Vegas affiliate operator prioritise PropellerAds or adsy.tech?
Both, in different slots. adsy.tech for validation budgets and Tier-2 iGaming/sweepstakes tests where the $0.50 CPM floor matters. PropellerAds for scaling US Tier-1 sweepstakes and iGaming above $5K/month where publisher depth and AM responsiveness compound. Vegas operators with multiple offers running simultaneously typically maintain accounts at both, plus one or two of Adsterra/RichAds/HilltopAds depending on vertical mix.
What about G2E (Global Gaming Expo) — is that relevant to popunder buying?
Indirectly. G2E is operator-and-supplier focused — the casinos and platform vendors, not the affiliate-traffic side. But the iGaming licensing conversations that happen at G2E (Curaçao, Anjouan, MGA, AAMS, ADM) translate into affiliate-buying behaviour 6–12 months later. Vegas affiliates who attend G2E in October pick up early signal on which iGaming brands will be aggressive on Tier-2 acquisition in Q1, which informs popunder-network selection. ASW remains the affiliate-side counterpart in January.
Are dating offers still buyable on popunder in Las Vegas in 2026?
Yes, with caveats. Mainstream dating (Tinder-adjacent, Match-Group brands) is buyable on PropellerAds and Adsterra with creative review. Adult-adjacent dating runs cleaner on Adsterra and HilltopAds — PropellerAds tightened adult-vertical creative review through 2024. The Vegas affiliate base has historically over-indexed on dating offers because the US Tier-1 audience is rich, and the city's affiliate-operator density means dating talent moves fluidly between offers. Network choice depends on which creative spectrum you're running.
How much should a Vegas-based affiliate test budget look like for a new offer?
For US Tier-1 sweepstakes or iGaming popunder, plan $2,000–$5,000 over two weeks for a meaningful read. That gets you through the publisher-rotation stabilisation, past the first-three-days noise, into actual auction-clearing CPM data with at least two creative iterations. Below $2K you're reading noise; above $5K you're already at scale and the test-vs-launch distinction blurs. adsy.tech's $0.50 floor lets the budget hit on more publishers; PropellerAds and Adsterra need the higher end of the budget to clear meaningfully.