Exploring Google’s Gambling Content Policy Change

For a very long time after it became clear that Google has firmly established itself as the leading search engine by far, the policy makers at the company which is now known as Alphabet (parent company of Google) were actively steering clear of the entertainment and promotion of gambling material. Part of their policy for both publishers (bloggers and website owners who joined their Google AdSense programme) and advertisers (Google AdWords clients) was not to include any material related to gambling.

The winds of change gradually started blowing through the world’s biggest search engine and your guess is as good as mine as to why exactly they decided to start warming up to the idea of including gambling content. We certainly have a few guesses, one being the fact that they realised just how lucrative it can be, given the extremely high demand from both advertisers and publishers, while another one can be likened to the “real-world” war on drugs like marijuana.

Sticking with the marijuana example, it’s becoming legal in many places around the world, including California in the USA as a recent state which legalised its use. This is a positive for cannabis users, whether medical or recreational, due to the fact they’d be able to know the quality of the final product is the best they could possibly purchase due to in-house and third-party testing teams that are only operational due to cannabis becoming a legal drug. Similarly, in Canada, where cannabis use has been legalized, people can buy cannabis online as well as offline for both medical and recreational purposes. There would also be strict government policies on the quality of final products, and online retailers such as buymyweedonline and others like them that sell cannabis online would have obtained a license from the government to operate this business. We also all know about places such as Amsterdam…

The point is when marijuana was the object of a massive underground trade, much like gambling used to be in the eyes of Google, there wasn’t much leverage for its effective regulation — much needed regulation at that. So the same applies to online gambling — casinos still pop-up and disappear overnight, some of which are very dodgy and can’t really be gauged as to their legitimacy, which leaves a lot of associated elements up in the air, like whether or not those online casinos offer a fair gaming platform or indeed if they pay out on players’ winnings at all.

So on the part of Google, the company definitely has the power to exercise some sort of regulation over just about all the content that gets published online. When was the last time you used the internet without using Google? Google is probably your home page and you probably also use their other services, like their Gmail server and perhaps even advanced services like Google Analytics.

The Effects of the Policy Change

So what exactly do Google’s policy changes in gambling content mean for you and I? If you’re a mere blogger it means you can tap into what is indeed a very lucrative market through referrals maybe or through content sponsorships. Sports betting sites in particular are known to pay very well for referrals, so that’s just another income stream you can explore if you have your own blog or website.

The most significant effect of this policy change however is one which is a little bit more subtle. What is means is that you can now play the lottery online via Google search results as opposed to having to rely on other marketing channels to access the web address of an online lottery operator or the operator of any other online gambling platform, like an online casino or a sports betting site.