Do Journalist Request Platforms Like HARO Work for Gambling Link Building in 2026?

What actually happened to HARO, and why does it matter for gambling PR?

HARO (Help a Reporter Out) launched in 2008, was acquired by Vocus in 2010, and came under Cision's ownership after Cision's 2014 merger with Vocus. Cision rebranded the service as Connectively in 2023, shifting toward a paid-pitch model that alienated much of HARO's original free user base. Cision discontinued Connectively entirely on December 9, 2024, citing a decision to focus resources on its CisionOne platform instead.

Featured.com acquired the HARO brand from Cision in April 2025 and relaunched it under the original name on April 22, 2025 — free, three digest emails a day, no pay-to-pitch tier. For anyone building a 2026 outreach calendar, the practical takeaway is that HARO is functionally a younger, less-proven platform than the one gambling PR teams remember from a few years ago, with a shorter track record and a user base still rebuilding.

Why do most journalist request pitches underperform for gambling brands?

Three problems compound for gambling specifically. First, YMYL scrutiny: most consumer and finance journalists working these platforms are wary of quoting a betting or casino source at all, since gambling coverage draws more editorial pushback than almost any other category a request platform serves. Second, most publications' own editorial standards, in the same spirit as the FTC's endorsement and disclosure guidance, require a source's commercial interest to be disclosed — a pitch that reads as promotional rather than genuinely expert gets spiked before it ever reaches a draft. Third, the relaunched platforms have a well-documented spam problem, with reporters flagging AI-generated, generic pitches flooding their inboxes, which raises the bar for a gambling pitch to stand out even higher than it already was.

• Pitches that mention a specific bonus, odds boost or brand promotion almost never get used — that reads as advertising, not expertise
• Pitches framed as market data, regulatory analysis or responsible-gambling insight get used far more often, because they answer the reporter's question rather than promoting a product
• A pitch without a real named expert and verifiable credentials is now competing against a flood of AI-generated submissions, and usually loses

Which journalist request platforms are worth trying for a gambling brand?

None of the current platforms are gambling-specific, so the same vetting applies across all of them:

• HARO (relaunched under Featured.com, April 2025) — free, three daily digests; broadest reach but the least gambling-experienced editorial pool of the current crop
• Qwoted — paid tiers with more source verification than HARO has historically had; a better fit for a named in-house expert with a genuine compliance or regulatory angle
• Featured — the same company now running HARO, with a separate expert-answer product aimed more at evergreen roundups than breaking news
• SourceBottle and Help a B2B Writer — smaller volume and less competition, worth a slot in the rotation but not a primary channel

What should a gambling brand pitch instead of a promotional angle?

The pitches that land for gambling brands read as data or policy commentary, not marketing. A named compliance officer commenting on a new regulator ruling, a data point pulled from aggregated betting-volume trends, or a responsible-gambling statistic tied to a current news cycle all give a journalist something to attribute — which is the entire point of the exchange.

This is the same discipline that makes digital PR outperform generic guest posting in this niche: journalists and request platforms alike reward a genuinely reportable fact over a dressed-up promotion, every time.

How should you build journalist requests into a wider link building program?

Treat journalist request platforms as a low-volume, high-variance channel that sits alongside — never replaces — gambling guest posts and niche edits on publishers that already cover the vertical. Budget a named expert's time for daily monitoring rather than expecting a single pitch to land; response rates across this entire category are low even in easier niches, and gambling's added scrutiny pushes that further.

• Assign one real, named subject-matter expert to own pitches — anonymous or generic 'our team' responses get filtered out immediately
• Track links earned by platform and topic angle, not just volume of pitches sent, so you can see which framing actually converts
• Never buy a 'guaranteed' journalist-platform placement — a paid guarantee on an editorial platform is itself a disclosure and trust problem

The bottom line on journalist request platforms for gambling link building

HARO's shutdown, sale and relaunch inside eighteen months is a genuine reason for caution, not a reason to skip the channel entirely — the platform that exists in 2026 is younger and less proven than the one gambling PR teams used a few years ago. Used narrowly, for data-led and compliance-angled pitches from a real named expert, journalist request platforms can add a handful of genuinely earned, high-authority links a year. Used as a volume play with promotional pitches, they'll waste more time than gambling guest posts and niche edits from agencies that specialise in this niche.