Starting September 14, Google changed the certification rules for gambling advertising. The update primarily affects operators that run ads for their own products through Google Ads and obtain platform certification for this purpose.
Webmasters who drive traffic to gambling offers through affiliate programs do not need to obtain this certification. Therefore, the new requirements do not affect them directly.
Before launching gambling ads, an operator must obtain Google certification. Without it, the platform does not allow advertising in this vertical.
Google will now review the advertising account’s violation history when issuing a certificate. Separate restrictions have been introduced for those who maintain several advertising accounts under one Manager Account.
Google announced the change back on July 13, but the new rules took effect on September 14.
What changed for Manager Account
Manager Account, or MCC, is a Google Ads account that allows several advertising accounts to be linked at once. In traffic arbitrage, it is used by teams and agencies that need to keep multiple accounts in one place and manage access to them.
Violations in linked accounts can now affect the certification of others. If accounts under the same Manager Account have repeatedly had their gambling advertising certificates revoked or regularly violated the rules of this category, Google may apply restrictions to the entire Manager Account.
In this case, new certificates may no longer be issued for accounts linked to it. Existing certificates may also be revoked.
At the same time, Google does not specify the exact number of violations or certificate revocations after which such measures are applied.
What else will be checked during certification
To obtain a certificate, Google also checks the domain from which the advertiser plans to promote the gambling product.
Google does not accept websites hosted on free subdomains. The domain must belong to the advertiser itself, not to a third-party company or another owner. The website must also feature the gambling product for which the advertising certificate is being requested.
This means that using a third-party domain or a free subdomain solely to obtain certification will not work.
Who the update affects
The new rules primarily affect gambling operators that buy traffic through Google Ads themselves. They also affect agencies that run such ads on behalf of operators and work with certified advertising accounts.
The setup is different for webmasters. If an affiliate marketer drives traffic to an operator’s offer through an affiliate program, the certificate is obtained by the operator, not the affiliate marketer, so Google’s new requirements do not directly apply to their advertising account.
The update may still indirectly affect affiliate traffic. If an operator loses its certificate or Google restricts the issuance of new certificates for its accounts, it will have fewer opportunities to buy gambling traffic through Google Ads on its own.
