I think you'd be surprised. Full disclosure: maybe 10 years or so ago I took 250CAD to write a buff article and link to an online casino. I removed the link th

I think you'd be surprised. Full disclosure: maybe 10 years or so ago I took 250CAD to write a buff article and link to an online casino. I removed the link the instant the 1 year I promised expired. Still, even for a low rank site they paid what to a university student was good money. For a proper writer their budgets are no doubt higher. For an article capable of going viral (as it is now on HN), no doubt they have budgets in the thousands. It seems silly, and no doubt it is, but I would be willing to bet that the author of this article even wrote the article he linked to. Perhaps the most fun aspect to contemplate: this is an example of a journalist with something to say financing said writing as a byproduct SEO warfare between an entirely not-news industry. The casino is not even advertising for the purposes of getting customers. The only reader the casino cares about is GoogleBot.