Frequently asked questions

Straight answers about the licence, PokaTheme 5, upgrading from v4, setup and support.
Not here? Ask on the support forum or contact us.

Licence and pricing

PokaTheme 5 costs 58€. That gets you the theme, the child theme, the demo packages and the documentation, plus one year of updates, downloads and support. You can use it on as many sites as you want.

It also includes a free installation with demo content on your own site — we do the setup for you if you want us to.

Buy PokaTheme 5 – 58€

Your sites keep working exactly as they are — nothing switches off and there is no time limit on using the theme.

What the first year buys is access to new versions, downloads and support. To keep that going, renew for 30€ a year. If you let it lapse you can renew later, whenever you need the next update; there is no penalty and no back-payment.

No. The licence is perpetual. Renewal only covers updates and support — the theme you downloaded is yours to keep running for as long as you like.

We do recommend staying on updates for a live affiliate site: WordPress, PHP and the operators’ requirements all keep moving, and the updates are what keep you in step with them.

Yes. One licence covers unlimited sites — your own and the ones you build for clients. There is no per-domain activation.

Nothing. Every existing customer — PokaTheme 4, 3, 2, all the way back — can download PokaTheme 5 from their account at no cost, with a fresh year of updates and support starting from the day v5 is released.

After that year the same 30€ a year renewal applies if you want to keep receiving updates. Your v4 sites are not affected either way: nothing changes on them until you decide to upgrade.

Prices are in euros (€). We accept credit and debit cards (through Stripe) and PayPal. If your card is in another currency, your bank converts at its own rate.

You need an account on pokatheme.com to buy — that is where your downloads, updates and support live afterwards.

You have 30 days from the day of purchase to ask for a refund. Email us with your pokatheme.com username and we will sort it out, usually within three working days. The details are in our terms and conditions.

If you are not sure the theme fits your project, log in to the dashboard demo before you buy and click around the admin first (your browser asks for guest / guest, then the demo login is shown on the page).

PokaTheme 5 and upgrading from v4

PokaTheme 5 is a major version, rebuilt for how casino, poker, sportsbook and crypto affiliate sites are built and ranked in 2026. The short list:

  • A real data model for operators. Eight taxonomies — software, licences, deposit methods, withdrawal methods, languages, currencies, devices and owner group — on top of the categories you already have, plus operator-to-operator relationships and verification fields (date last verified, deposit tested, withdrawal time observed, who tested it).
  • Bonuses as their own content type, with code, expiry, wagering terms and the operator they belong to. Bonus cards, bonus tables and bonus-type archives (“No deposit bonuses”, “Free spins”, “Cashback”) come with it.
  • New page types that rank: payment-method guides, country pages (“best casinos in Canada”), software/provider pages, head-to-head comparisons (“Casino A vs Casino B”), author profiles and a “how we rate” page.
  • Trust and compliance tooling: compliance profiles per market, licence badges that link to the regulator’s register, automatic #ad on affiliate links, bonus terms always shown next to the bonus, a responsible-gambling hub and a zero-layout-shift age gate.
  • 15 blocks for the block editor, with block bindings so a rating or a bonus value can sit inside a core block. Every block is also a shortcode for Elementor, Beaver Builder and Divi.
  • A sortable comparison table where you choose the columns.
  • Dark mode as a switch in the header, eight style variations, and five one-click demos — casino, slots, sports betting, crypto and poker.
  • Speed: no jQuery on the front end, per-component CSS, WebP images and self-hosted fonts — a 100/100 mobile Lighthouse score on our test pages.
  • A freshness dashboard that lists expired offers, reviews due a re-check and rankings nobody has touched.
  • A migration tool from v4 with a dry run, and a compatibility layer that keeps v4 shortcodes, block names and hooks working.

The homepage walks through all of it with screenshots.

Three steps, and the middle one does the work:

  1. Back up the site (files and database). Better still, do the upgrade on a staging copy first.
  2. Install PokaTheme 5 over v4 — upload the new zip under Appearance → Themes → Add New and choose Replace current with uploaded, or replace the theme folder via FTP.
  3. Open Tools → PokaTheme v5. Nothing runs by itself: the screen scans your site and reports what it will do, with real examples, before it touches anything. When the report looks right, press the button and it runs in batches; you can stop and resume, and running it twice changes nothing.

Your reviews, affiliate links, categories, Customizer settings, widgets and menus are used by v5 exactly as they are — nothing is renamed and your URLs stay the same. The v4 compatibility layer keeps the old block names, template tags and hook names alive for the whole 5.x line, so a child theme built for v4 keeps running. Deprecation notices only appear when WP_DEBUG is on.

Rather not do it yourself? Contact us with an administrator login, the same way as the free setup, and we do the upgrade for you.

One thing, because one thing changed shape between v4 and v5: the bonus. In v4 the bonus was a line of text on each review; v5 has a proper Bonus with a code, an expiry date and terms. The migration creates a Bonus for every review that carries one, with the review’s terms copied alongside — as a draft, so the same offer is never advertised twice while you check it. The v4 text stays on the review, so the result can be compared and the step re-run.

Everything else is additive. The new operator taxonomies (licences, payment methods, software and so on) start empty, because v4 had nowhere to store that information; filling them in is what unlocks the payment-method, provider and comparison pages.

It should not. Nothing was renamed in v5, and the compatibility layer keeps v4 shortcodes, block names and hooks resolving for the whole of 5.x, and the child theme mechanism is unchanged. Template files you copied into the child theme keep overriding the parent, but they will not pick up v5’s new markup until you update them, so it is worth going through the list of overrides once.

If something does break, post on the forum with the error and we will look at it. Larger custom work is billed by the hour.

You can stay on v4 for as long as you like; it keeps working and nothing is switched off. New features and fixes go into 5.x from now on, though, so a site you are actively growing is better off on v5 — and the upgrade is free for you.

Installation, demo content and setup

Buy the theme, then contact us with a WordPress administrator login for your site (create a temporary admin account for us and delete it afterwards). Tell us which demo and which market you want.

We install PokaTheme 5 and the child theme, import the demo content you chose, set the compliance profile for your market and check that every page renders. It is usually done within a working day, and there is nothing to pay.

It works best on a fresh WordPress install or a staging site: importing demo content into a site that already has posts adds the demo pages next to yours, which is rarely what you want.

The package you download from your account contains the theme zip (pokatheme.zip), the child theme and a link to the documentation. Upload the theme zip, not the whole package:

From your dashboard

Go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme, choose pokatheme.zip, click Install Now and then Activate. If you plan to customise templates or add hooks, install and activate the child theme the same way.

By FTP or SFTP

Unzip pokatheme.zip, upload the pokatheme folder to /wp-content/themes/ and activate it under Appearance → Themes.

If your host rejects the upload because of a file-size limit, the FTP route always works.

Once the theme is active, you can import one of the five demos. The installation guide in the documentation has the details.

Import into a fresh WordPress or a staging site, and take a backup first. An import replaces the homepage, the primary menu, the sidebar and footer widgets, and the site title and tagline, and it cannot be undone.

  1. Activate PokaTheme and install the free One Click Demo Import plugin. The theme offers to install it for you.
  2. Go to Appearance → PokaTheme Demos and click Import Demo on one of the five demos: PokaTheme, Slots Dark, Sports Betting, Crypto Exchange or Poker Room. All five are on the demos page.
  3. On the next screen, leave the optional plugins unticked unless you want them. Click Continue & Import and keep the tab open until it says Import Complete!

The import brings the demo’s pages, operators, bonuses, menus, widgets and Customizer settings, and rewrites every link to point at your site. Afterwards, work through the first-run list:

  • replace the demo operators’ affiliate links with your own tracking links;
  • replace the demo brands, ratings and verification notes. The brands are invented on the four newer demos, and on the PokaTheme demo the ratings of real brands are demonstration values;
  • pick the compliance profile for your market;
  • set your site title, logo and footer copyright line, and decide whether dark mode is on;
  • replace the demo images with your own.

The demos chapter of the documentation explains which demo to pick, everything an import changes, and what to do if an import stops.

None are required. Reviews, bonuses, the blocks, geolocation, the FAQ and comparison features are all built into the theme.

Plugins we recommend, depending on what you build: Slots Launch if you want a free-slots games library (it brings around 38,000 games and 760 providers; you need your own API key); an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO; and a form plugin such as Contact Form 7. If you prefer a page builder, every block is also a shortcode, so Elementor, Beaver Builder and Divi can place them; the Classic Editor plugin is supported too.

Yes, it is built into the theme — there is no separate plugin any more. Turn it on under Customize → Theme Settings → General → Enable Geolocation, then set allowed and blocked countries per operator. Visitors see a tick or a cross next to each operator for their country, and the new country pages (“/casinos-in/ca/”) list only the operators that accept players from there.

Country detection uses MaxMind’s free GeoLite2 database; you need a free MaxMind licence key, which you paste into the geolocation settings.

Any standard WordPress host will do. PokaTheme 5 is built and tested on WordPress 7.1 and runs on PHP 8.1 or newer (tested on 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3). No special server modules, no Node, no build step on your side.

You do not need a caching plugin to get the performance scores — but on a busy site a page cache is still a good idea.

Features

A compliance profile is a preset for a market — UK, Malta (MGA), Ontario, Sweden or a generic one — that switches on the things that market expects to see on an affiliate site: an age statement, responsible-gambling links, licence display, #ad tagging on affiliate links, bonus terms next to bonus values, and a minimum age (18 in most markets, 19 in Ontario, 21 in several US states).

Every switch can be overridden, and Tools → PokaTheme compliance shows what is on, where the setting came from and what the theme can actually see on your pages. Nothing is on until you pick a profile.

This is tooling, not legal advice. The theme cannot know which licence you hold or what your regulator told you last month; whoever owns compliance for your site signs off on it.

Bonuses are a content type of their own in v5. Each bonus has a headline value, a bonus code, an expiry date, wagering and other terms, and the operator it belongs to. You show them with the bonus card and bonus table blocks, and the theme builds bonus-type archives (no deposit, free spins, cashback and so on) automatically.

The terms are always rendered next to the value. If you publish a bonus with no terms, the editor warns you — it does not stop you — and the compliance screen counts them so you can find them later.

Each licence (UKGC, MGA, Curaçao and so on) is a term with a badge image and a verification URL pointing at the regulator’s register. A badge on a review links there with the word “Verify”; a licence without a register link renders as plain text instead. A picture of a badge is exactly what an unlicensed operator copies first, so the theme only shows the badge when there is something behind it.

It is a switch in the header. Every template has a dark palette, so the visitor flips between light and dark over the same content — there is no second site to maintain and no separate “dark demo” any more. In v4, dark meant importing a second copy of the site with a dark colour preset.

There is a second logo setting for the dark version, because a dark logo on a dark page is no logo at all.

Style variations are ready-made looks — Sportsbook, Crypto, Poker, Slots, Slots Dark, Sports Betting, Crypto Exchange and Poker Room — that you choose in the Customizer and preview before publishing. They set the whole colour scheme in one go, the colour pickers show the variation’s values as their defaults, and every colour is still yours to change afterwards. All eight pass WCAG AA contrast for text, and the last four also carry a skin — the shapes behind their demos — that never overrides a colour you set. In v4 that took a separate demo per look.

Patterns are pre-built sections you drop into any page from the block inserter and edit in place — thirty-seven of them: eleven that suit any site, and three written for each of eight niches. The listing patterns are built on blocks that query, so one shows your own operators the moment you insert it.

Yes to both. The comparison table block (also [poka_comparison_table]) lets you choose the columns — rating, bonus, licence, payment methods, withdrawal time and so on — and visitors can sort it. It works with JavaScript off and never shifts the layout while loading.

Head-to-head pages (“Casino A vs Casino B”) are generated from the operators you relate to each other; each pair has exactly one URL.

Yes. PokaTheme 5 is built for the block editor first, and every one of its 15 blocks is also available as a shortcode, so you can place operator lists, bonus tables, comparison tables and the rest inside any page builder. The Classic Editor plugin is supported too.

Not any more. In v5 the blocks and shortcodes take the operator’s slug (the last part of its URL), which is easier to read and survives moving the site. Numeric IDs still work if you have them in old content.

If you do need an ID: hover over the item in the admin list and read post=123 at the end of the link in your browser’s status bar — 123 is the ID.

The structure: every rankable page type (bonus archives, payment guides, country pages, provider pages, comparisons, author profiles) is a real URL with its own template, and internal links between them are generated from your data. Affiliate links can be cloaked and are tagged #ad automatically where the compliance profile asks for it.

The signals: clean heading outlines and fast pages, plus the E-E-A-T furniture Google weighs on gambling content — licences that link to the regulator’s register, visible responsible-gambling resources, author profiles with credentials, and dated verification notes on every review. The theme works alongside Yoast SEO rather than replacing it.

One honest note: Google no longer shows star, FAQ or price rich results for gambling queries, so we do not sell “review schema for rich snippets”.

Yes, through the Slots Launch plugin, which the theme integrates with. You create a Slots Launch account, whitelist your domain, paste the API key into the plugin and import the games (around 38,000 titles from 760 providers; the import takes 10–15 minutes). The plugin’s shortcodes give you the game archives and per-game embeds, and the theme styles them and cross-links providers to your operator pages.

Performance

Yes, and it is measured, not estimated: a Lighthouse run is part of the theme’s automated tests, on mobile, on our test pages, with no cache or optimisation plugin installed. Largest Contentful Paint comes in under two seconds and layout shift is effectively zero.

How: no jQuery on the front end (about 42 KB gzipped saved on every page), CSS split per component so a page only loads what it uses, WebP images, self-hosted fonts and an age gate that reserves its own space instead of pushing the page down.

Your own score also depends on your host, your images and whatever third-party embeds you add — the theme gives you a page that starts at 100, and keeps it there if you keep the extras lean.

Not to reach the score — the numbers above are without one. A page cache is still worth having on a busy site, simply to serve more visitors from the same server. The theme does not conflict with the usual ones.

Updates and support

Log in to your account and download the latest package. Then either upload the new theme zip under Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme and choose Replace current with uploaded, or replace the pokatheme folder via FTP.

Your settings, content and child theme are untouched by an update — which is why customisations belong in the child theme, not in the parent.

Every release is announced in the changelog on the support forum, and we email customers about major releases. You can also subscribe to the newsletter.

Support is included for the first year and for as long as your updates are renewed. We answer Monday to Friday, 10:00–18:00 (GMT+3); you can typically expect a reply within 48 hours, except at weekends and on holidays. Support covers the theme itself — customisation and feature work is a separate service.

Right here on the site: the PokaTheme documentation covers installation, the five demos and how to import them, the Customizer, every block and shortcode, the hooks for developers and geolocation. The download package links to it.

Yes. We design and develop custom affiliate themes for your brand and data (from scratch or on PokaTheme’s code), build custom blocks and integrations for existing PokaTheme sites, and do SEO for gambling sites. See the services page for what we offer and how we work, or ask for a quote.

Yes, from both sides. The live demos show the front end. The dashboard demo lets you into the admin: your browser first asks for a username and password (guest / guest), then the WordPress login page shows the demo account.

Add a review or a bonus, edit a page, change the colours in the Customizer — it is a real PokaTheme 5 site, and it resets itself every 8 hours. And there is the 30-day refund if it turns out not to fit.

Still have a question?

Pre-sales questions, a feature you are not sure about, or you want to see the admin before you buy — just ask.

Contact us Support forum