On July 23, Google announced updated application forms and certification standards for its Gambling and Games policy in Google Ads. This change affects all gambling jurisdictions, social casinos, and online games outside the casino category where certification is mandatory.
Starting August 26, all new applicants must use the new forms. Key changes highlighted by iGN include:
- Advertisers must hold a valid local license in each targeted region and provide documentation to confirm it.
- When targeting multiple countries, advertisers must submit separate applications for each country.
- The standard prohibits combining online gambling certification and social casino certification in one account. Separate accounts are now required for different targeting groups of social casinos.
- Affiliates and aggregators, for whom a personal license is not mandatory, must link only to gambling companies licensed in the targeted GEO from the advertised domain and include a footer statement about this.
- Landing pages must prominently display age warnings, information on gambling addiction help, terms of use, and a footer with the licensee's name, license number, and privacy policy indicating the data controller.
- Online gambling operators and online games outside the casino category promoting mobile applications must link to the official app page in the store from a licensed domain, and provide a backlink to the domain on the store page.
- If the relationship between the advertiser and the licensee is unclear, the applicant must provide documents describing the relationship between the advertising entity, the gambling company, and the domain.
- Recertification is mandatory for any significant changes to the application data, under the threat of account suspension.
This announcement marks the third change to the Gambling and Games policy in July, following the expansion of the Authorized Buyers programmatic channel on August 10 and the tightening of certification access on September 14.