Google decides to accept DFS and lottery courier ads in the US

Alphabet-owned search engine Google has issued a new update outlining a change to its gambling and games policy ads. Moving forward, the company will allow ads for daily fantasy sports and lottery courier services to appear in certain states in the United States.

Google revisits ads rules for the United States

The new changes will be enacted on Monday, July 15, and were announced earlier this week, outlining the company’s latest calibration of marketing business.

Before any such ads may appear, however, the entity pushing to have ads displayed on Google would have to receive a certification from the company.

In the meantime, DFS ads will be available in nearly 20 states, including: Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Google also specifies that an entity must have at least one license even if it wants to run ads in a jurisdiction that does not originally require a DFS license. In the meantime, Google is also planning to enable lottery couriers to promote their services through the company’s search engine and advertisement ecosystem with 30 states expected to go live.

The Google update listed the following states as eligible for lottery couriers to promote their services in:

Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Google is being extra cautious about gambling ads

This latest measure attempts to create a sort of efficiency in the way private businesses may use Google’s ad services to present their products to clients. Google has generally taken a dim view of gambling advertisements, realizing that it is treading on thin ice with international regulations.

Italy has sued the company on several occasions for allowing what the state describes as "illegal advertisement" to appear to consumers in the country. In one case, Italy went after YouTube, a Google-owned video streaming service.

Google has also been the victim of search engine manipulation by bad actors who had sought to place their websites higher in the search engine results by gaming the system. Google is also very strict as to how gambling advertisements may appear on its platforms, with more than 10 criteria having to be met beforehand.

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