Marc tells me the following:
To demand a fee for advertising, you need to have a site with established traffic. The sites you mention (gambling.com, casino.co.uk) are easy because they get the traffic. That’s why they can demand up-front payments.
and Krystal tells me:
Honestly advertising model is not a good way to go. If the affiliate model is unprofitable on your sites you would not get advertisers either. Just have to pick programs right.
Any more feedback on this from anyone? Would it make a difference if the URLs were highly generic, highly brandable etc?