PropellerAds and Telegram ads for a free blackjack tournament

Why promote a free game instead of a casino

Most affiliates who buy Telegram traffic point it at a casino landing page. That route has three problems: ad review is stricter for real-money gambling, the click lands on someone else's site, and you pay for every visitor who leaves without registering. A free blackjack tournament changes all three.

• Cleaner ad approval. The product has no deposits, no shop and no real money. Players get 10,000 free chips per tournament and compete for a prize that is a bonus balance at the sponsoring casino with 1x wagering. An ad that says "free blackjack tournament, play in Telegram" is a different review case from an ad that says "deposit now". It is still gambling-adjacent, so it can still be refused, which is why the compliance section below matters.
• Lower cost per player, by design. Asking someone to play a free game is a smaller step than asking them to register and deposit. More of the people who click take that step, so the same spend should produce more players. We do not publish a figure for this because results depend on your country, creative and bid.
• Players arrive at your own bot. Each tenant runs its own Telegram bot, public channel and web table. Once a player starts your bot, you can reach them again with broadcasts and scheduled promo posts, within the weekly DM cap you set. The click becomes an audience you keep, not a single visit you rent.

The conversion to a casino account happens later and on purpose: winners must register at the casino and send the email they signed up with to collect the prize. We explain that funnel in how free tournaments convert players into casino accounts.

Organic first: the traffic you do not pay for

Paid clicks are easier to judge when the bot already has some life in it. A channel with a visible leaderboard and a few weeks of posts gives new players a reason to stay. Before you spend, set up these four sources.

The reason is practical: a player who arrives from a paid ad judges the bot in seconds. An empty channel and a leaderboard with no names give them a reason to leave; a live tournament with real rivals gives them a reason to play the first hand. Free sources also give you a baseline to compare paid clicks against.

Your Telegram channel

Every tenant gets a public channel where the bot is admin. Use the Broadcast center to post text, image and button posts, and use "Post leaderboard to channel" to publish the live standings as an image with your logo header (Arabic uses the Cairo font). Schedule promo posts daily, on weekdays, at a set date and time, or right after a tournament starts, so the channel keeps moving when you are busy.

Cross-promotion with other channels

Arabic sports, gaming and deals channels often swap posts with each other. Offer a channel owner a post about your free tournament in exchange for a post about theirs, or invite their community to a shared tournament week. Give each partner its own start link (for example ?start=xp_channelname) so you can compare them later.

Short clips and leaderboard images on X, Instagram and TikTok

The web table has deal animations and table sounds, which makes it easy to record a 10 to 20 second clip of a blackjack or a doubled hand. Post the clip with the week's leaderboard image and a line such as "Free tournament, top 3 win a casino bonus". Use Arabic hashtags your audience already follows, for example #بلاك_جاك or #بطولة, plus a country tag, and keep one tag that is your own brand.

The "Play on the web" link

Not every player wants to play inside Telegram. The Broadcast center has a quick "Play on the web" message that invites each player in their own language. Your public table at https://blackjack.toparab.casino/play/your-slug works on phones, supports Arabic right-to-left, and shares chips, points and leaderboard with the bot. Put that link in your social bios. Players sign in with their bot nickname plus a 6-digit code the bot sends them.

PropellerAds Telegram Mini Apps ads: what they are

PropellerAds sells ads that run inside Telegram Mini Apps, the web apps people open inside Telegram. Its Telegram Mini Apps Ads page lists three placements: display banners shown within the mini app interface, native ads integrated into the experience, and interstitial ads that appear full screen during natural breaks. The same page lists iGaming, Telegram apps and channels, and games among the industries the format "works best" with, and claims Telegram users show CTR and CR 10 to 20x higher than traditional display formats. That is the network's claim, not a measurement of ours.

The PropellerAds launch article adds that ads can appear through tasks and reward mechanics inside mini apps, not only as banners, and that the network can auto-generate creatives for a first test.

For an affiliate this is the most direct paid channel to the table: one campaign reaches players across a large network of mini apps, and every click lands in your own bot or on your web table, where the visitor becomes a follower and a player.

How bidding and targeting work

According to the PropellerAds help article on the Telegram Ads format, you choose one of three pricing models: CPC, SmartCPC or CPA Goal. CPC is the simplest for a first test because you know what each click costs. PropellerAds says the right CPC varies with audience targeting, competition and region, so it does not publish one number. Targeting options listed in the help center include country (and city or state where available), platform, OS, browser, browser language, connection type, and zone inclusion or exclusion.

Minimum deposit

None of the PropellerAds pages we read for this article state a minimum deposit or minimum campaign budget. Check the current amount in the billing section of your advertiser account before you plan the test.

How to set up a PropellerAds campaign step by step

The steps below follow the PropellerAds guide to creating a Telegram Ads campaign, with notes for a free tournament bot. If you do not have a bot yet, start with how to create a Telegram bot with BotFather.

1. Prepare one link per campaign. Telegram supports deep links in the form https://t.me/yourbot?start=parameter. The Telegram bot documentation allows A to Z, a to z, 0 to 9, underscore and hyphen, up to 64 characters. Use a readable pattern such as propeller_iq_w1 (network, country, week). If the target URL field does not accept a t.me link in your account, send the click to your web table or to a page on your own site that embeds it.
2. Open an advertiser account and add funds. Register, confirm your email and top up. Check the minimum deposit in your account.
3. Create a campaign and select the Telegram Ads format. Give the campaign a name that matches the start parameter, so the two are easy to match later.
4. Choose the pricing model. Start with CPC. Move to SmartCPC or CPA Goal only when you have enough data to set a sensible target.
5. Add the target URL. Paste your start link or web table link. PropellerAds lets you add tracking macros; add them only if your own analytics can read them.
6. Set frequency, traffic options and countries. Run one country per campaign. Bids, policies and player behaviour differ between Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Jordan, and a mixed campaign hides those differences.
7. Set the bid and budgets. Enter your CPC bid, a daily budget and a total budget. The total budget is your safety net: the test cannot overspend.
8. Add creatives. The guide allows up to 8 creatives per campaign. Use Arabic and English versions of two or three ideas so you learn which message works, not only which image.
9. Review compliance and launch. Read the ad and landing rules for your target country, submit for moderation, and launch once approved.

Telegram Ads, the official platform

Telegram runs its own ad platform at ads.telegram.org. It shows sponsored messages in public one-to-many channels with 1,000 or more subscribers, and you can choose specific channels to target. Its ad guidelines are strict on this category: ads must not promote online or offline gambling, gaming or casino-based activities "involving real money, prizes, or goods of any value". A free tournament whose winners receive a casino bonus balance is likely to fall under that rule when read literally. The guidelines also allow only one link in the ad text, in a t.me format, and require the ad, the targeted channel and the destination to share one language.

Our reading: do not plan your launch around Telegram Ads for this product. If you want to try it, ask Telegram's ad review first and accept a refusal as the likely answer.

Creative ideas in Arabic and English

Keep the message on the free game and the leaderboard. Never say or suggest that players win real money in the game. The prize is a casino bonus balance with 1x wagering, and you can say so plainly.

English	Arabic
Free blackjack tournament this week. 10,000 chips, top 3 win a casino bonus.	بطولة بلاك جاك مجانية هذا الأسبوع. 10,000 رقاقة، والثلاثة الأوائل يربحون رصيد مكافأة.
Play blackjack in Telegram. No deposit, just your nickname. 21+.	العب بلاك جاك داخل تيليجرام. بدون إيداع، فقط اسم مستعار. +21.
Can you reach the top of the leaderboard by Sunday?	هل تصل إلى قمة لوحة المتصدرين قبل الأحد؟
New tournament every Monday. Free chips, live ranking.	بطولة جديدة كل اثنين. رقائق مجانية وترتيب مباشر.

For images, use a crop of the web table with the sponsor logo on the felt, or this week's leaderboard image. Real table visuals set a fair expectation of what the player will see after the click.

Write the Arabic version for readers in the Gulf, Iraq and the Levant at once: short sentences, a clear verb first such as "play" or "join". Avoid words that suggest guaranteed winnings or money, which misdescribe the product and can get the ad refused.

An example test budget

The plan below is an example to adapt, not a result. Amounts are placeholders; set your own bid from what PropellerAds shows for each country.

Week	Campaigns	Example daily budget	What you decide at the end
1	1 country, 2 creatives (AR and EN), start link propeller_c1_w1	10 USD	Is the ad approved and do clicks start the bot?
2	Same country, 4 creatives, new start link per creative idea	10 USD	Which message brings players who reach the qualifying hands?
3	Add a second country with the best two creatives	10 USD per country	Which country gives more qualified players for the money?
4	Keep the better country, pause the weaker one	Raise only the winner	Did any prize winner register at the casino?

Tracking: what to watch

Give every campaign, partner channel and social post its own start parameter, and use UTM tags on links to your own website where your analytics can read them. The dashboard does not yet report results per start parameter, so use separate links per campaign and compare new players week by week. Changing one thing per week (one new country or one new creative set) keeps that comparison honest.

Keep a simple sheet outside the dashboard: campaign name, start parameter, country, spend, PropellerAds clicks, then new players in the same week. After four weeks you can see which source earns a bigger budget and which one to stop.

Watch three numbers in this order:

• New players: people who started the bot and picked a nickname, against the clicks PropellerAds reports.
• Qualified players: players who played the minimum number of hands and appear on the Tournaments page standings.
• Prize claims: winners who registered at the casino and sent their email, which the bot posts in your private admin group and the casino marks as credited.

The last number is the one that pays. The flow behind it is described on how TopArab.casino works.

Compliance notes

• Describe the game as what it is: free to play, virtual chips, no deposit, prizes paid as a casino bonus balance with 1x wagering.
• Show 21+ in the creative and target adults only. The bot asks every player to confirm 21+ before playing.
• PropellerAds accepts iGaming traffic for this format and lists iGaming among the industries it works best with. Because you advertise a free game with no deposit, your creative and landing (your bot or your web table) stay simple to approve. Keep the usual basics: no misleading claims, adult targeting, and follow PropellerAds' ad guidelines for each country you select.
• Gambling advertising is restricted or illegal in many Arab countries. You, as the tenant, are responsible for the laws and advertising rules of every country you target. This article describes how the networks work; it is not legal advice.

Want to see the bot and the web table before you buy traffic? Request a demo and we will set up a table with your partner casino's logo.