From Making $100K a Month Through SEO to Rolling Out Parimatch Across 20 Markets

The iGaming world is split into two castes: operators and affiliates. They rarely share secrets, and almost no one knows what’s really going on behind the scenes of the other side. But there are a few who’ve succeeded in both worlds. Dmitriy Belyanin is one of them. He is a true industry legend. He started as an SEO affiliate earning over $100K a month and later became a top manager at Parimatch, responsible for launching the brand across African markets.

Today, Dmitriy runs his own investment fund, which has poured nearly $30 million into various teams over the past year and a half. In the second episode of The Riddick Level, he talks about selling his SEO business at 19 for just 0.5x annual net profit, why operators sometimes need to shut down entire markets, and what exactly he looks for in teams as an investor.

This material is a shortened version of The Riddick Level’s second podcast episode, bringing together Dmitriy’s responses to the most interesting questions.

Dmitriy, you’ve mentioned more than once that games had a huge impact on your path. How did it all begin, and what did that experience teach you?

Honestly, it all started pretty early. I got my first Sega in second grade, and from that moment, I lived and breathed games. For me, they were an escape, a way to step into another world. I loved studying, but games gave me a different kind of thrill: the rush of competition, the drive to be the best.

Warcraft 3 was the first game I took seriously, really professionally. The internet was dial-up back then: constant lags, endless reconnects… but it built endurance and discipline. To succeed, you had to play for days. I practiced, analyzed, and improved every move. And at some point, it all paid off: my German teammate and I became Europe’s #1 duo in the 2v2 category, holding that title for about eight months. Our record was 145 wins and just 2–3 losses.

Back in Belarus, I played in tournaments and even reached the qualifiers for the World Cyber Games. I missed the world finals by just one spot — the top 3 got to go. Still, I got my first sponsorship payments: $30–50 at a time, but for a teenager, that felt huge. That’s when I first realized that skill could bring income.

Then poker entered my life. The entire Warcraft community suddenly learned that one of the top players had won a tournament and took home around €200,000, and everyone, including me, wanted to give it a try.

That’s when I discovered PokerStrategy, a site that gave players a so-called “free fifty”, a $50 bankroll to start playing. I lost my first one instantly. But the second was the one that really began my professional poker journey.

“It was kind of my way to escape from reality a little bit back then, to spend less time studying. Because I was a total nerd.”

How did poker lead you to the affiliate model and building your own SEO projects?

While playing on PokerStrategy, one thought kept bothering me: they’re giving away all these “free fifties” to thousands of players, but how does that make sense? There must be logic behind it. I got curious about the math: where’s the money coming from, and why is it profitable to hand out bonuses?

Once I dug deeper, I realized this was the affiliate model. They were bringing in players who paid rake, and PokerStrategy earned a commission from that. Around that time, I met one of the moderators on the Russian-language forum who explained the mechanics in detail. That conversation basically opened the door to a new world for me.

It seemed simple: buy a domain, build a website, write texts, upload images, and you have a system that can make money. A college friend and I  (we were both computer science students) decided to give it a go. He handled the tech side, and I wrote the content. Literally a week after launch, traffic started coming in.

I still remember that moment vividly: we were sitting at the back of the classroom, I opened my old laptop, saw the first visitors appear on the dashboard, and felt pure excitement.

Do you remember how much the business made and why you decided to sell it?

Oh, it was doing incredibly well. We targeted Tier-1 markets, the sites grew fast, and so did the profits. At its peak, the business was generating around $100,000 per month. But the profit honestly scared me. I didn’t understand how to legalize the income or manage it properly. I simply didn’t have the tools or the knowledge back then.

Then some guys who’d been in the industry longer approached me and offered to buy the project. To me, it seemed like an insane amount of money. It was half of our yearly profit. Now I realize I undersold it. It was a growing, high-potential business worth way more.

I sold it when I was 19. My partner decided to step back, while I felt like I was just getting started. After the deal, I took a ten-day break and immediately began searching for the next thing.

“It felt like… I don’t know… like a predator that had tasted blood. I had this insane rush, this high from realizing that I could actually do anything.”

And how did your journey with Parimatch begin? How did you convince them to entrust you with launching in Africa, given you had no operator-side experience?

Parimatch tried to recruit me several times over the years, but it never quite worked out until one moment. They were building a new international department and needed someone to lead and develop the online segment (including affiliate marketing) across Africa.

I had an interview with Lasha Gogiberidze, CEO of the African branch. He was honest and told me, “I like you, but the founders have doubts. You’ve never worked on the operator side.” And he was right: I knew how to drive traffic, but not how things ran inside a bookmaker’s operation.

He then suggested I write a motivational letter to convince the founders. And here’s where the stars aligned: at that exact time, I was studying at the Chartered Institute of Marketing and writing my thesis. The topic was “Launching a Gambling Operator in the African Market.”

So I didn’t invent anything new. I just opened my thesis, copied and pasted the most punchy parts (actual market strategies, data, research), and sent it in as my letter. The reply came almost instantly, and I was hired.

That thesis, my research on exactly this topic, became the proof that convinced the company to trust me in that role. And that’s how my first market became Tanzania.

You mentioned that during your time at Parimatch, you launched around twenty markets, but not all of them were sustainable. In your opinion, what kills a market most often?

In short, it’s a lack of foundation. People often get dazzled by potential and numbers, but there’s so much more behind them: proper research, local partners, expertise, and understanding of the audience. When those elements are missing, everything collapses.

There were cases when a market simply became unprofitable. Payment commissions alone could reach 30–35% of total GGR, making the business meaningless. Sometimes the mistake was rushing in: entering without enough analysis, without a localized product, or with the wrong positioning.

You really need a checklist for entering a market the right way: if you’re missing eight out of ten key points, the outcome is obvious. That’s why some markets stuck and grew, while others had to be shut down. But each one brought valuable experience and the realization that not every “new market” is worth the investment.

During your time at Parimatch, the team grew from about 15 people to more than 200. What mattered more in that kind of expansion: processes or people? And overall, how do you preserve company culture when the team grows that fast?

The first thing, always, is people. You can build, automate, or rewrite processes. But you can’t replace people whose eyes light up with passion. When we started, there were about twenty of us. Then COVID hit, and the team grew tenfold. I still remember walking into the office one day and realizing I didn’t recognize half the people there. Yet somehow, the same energy was still in the air. The company’s DNA was intact.

The second success factor was the product. Parimatch had always been a marketing-driven company, but over those years, we made a huge leap forward. We strengthened the brand positioning and ended up with a product so good that others started using it as a B2B solution.

And the third, the brand itself. That iconic Electric Yellow color: it’s energy, it’s recognition. We learned how to localize it in markets where the word “Parimatch” originally meant nothing. We brought the brand to a whole new level. Because of that, the culture inside and the perception outside stayed aligned, even as the team grew exponentially.

After leaving Parimatch, you launched your own fund pretty quickly. What triggered that decision?

At first, I planned to take some time off. After the exit and the money that came with it, that seemed logical. But, as usual, I didn’t rest a single day. I already had this itch to return to my roots: to build companies, invest in people, mentor founders, but now in a new format, at the crossroads of business and investment.

The turning point came after a conversation with my friend and mentor, Jeffrey Haas, whom I met in person for the first time at SBC Barcelona 2023. He told me, “You’ve got insane experience. Try investing.” Then he gave me a small exercise: “Write down a list of ten people and ten companies you’d want to invest in.” So I did, well, eight, not ten. Reached out to all of them, and almost everyone said yes.

That’s how my fund was born. A year and a half later, the portfolio had 12 companies: around 90% in affiliate and marketing, two tech projects, and one passion project, Whale (which started as a Telegram casino and eventually grew into a full-fledged casino brand). In total, my partners and I have invested over $20 million, and that figure is now approaching $ 30 million.

“We hugged, even teared up a bit. It was a really emotional meeting between two grown men.”

When it comes to affiliate or media buying teams, what qualities make you consider investing in them?

For me, everything starts with people. If there’s chemistry with the founders, that spark when you sit in the same room and, an hour later, you walk out inspired and full of energy, those are my people. And honestly, there aren’t many like that. Some teams print money, but you don’t want to build a business with them because you just don’t vibe on the same wavelength.

Next — impact. I need to know that my presence can truly move the needle, that I can help the company scale. If I look at a business and realize my involvement wouldn’t bring real value, I simply don’t step in.

And third — philosophy. The project has to align with my internal “punk vision.” I want to work with people who take familiar things and do them their own way, just a little differently.

For more about risk, team dynamics, and why the most important thing is never to stop moving forward, watch the full second episode of The Riddick Level podcast with Dmitriy Belianin.