Referral bonus system is actually an advertisement system. It is the strongest advertisement system employed by gambling companies. This means that some parts of the money the company should be burning on promotions is channeled to referral bonuses. In a real life it is not a waste of time and according to Paxmao, it is not a favour the gambling company is doing for you. It is the reward of work done and people who knows how to convince others to play in their favourite platforms benefits from this.
Affiliate Marketing is one powerful marketing tool in online business for many companies. What online casinos did was to take it to the next level by giving a high percentage of referral bonuses than any other business? This is the only reason why everyone wants to venture into this business. There has been a rise of influencers who are trying to promote an online gambling platform as they are actually targeting the referral bonus. My opinion is that in the AI anyone can become an affiliate marketer for a casino if they have a plan in placed.
The reason the gambling companies increased the referral bonuses is that they do not promote in so many places, like Google. So, what they do is use the customer they have and get more customer by using the referral system.
I think that is the same reason why bitcointalk.org is now a very lucrative place for gambling companies to promote their services.