Gambling Ads On Search Sites

[dannysullivan]

A lawsuit has been filed over gambling ads showing up on major search sites with California. This follows Yahoo and Google themselves having already established guidelines that are supposed to keep online gambling ads out of their listings, after apparent pressure from the US government. Nevertheless, such ads still appear. Another lawsuit has also been filed claiming First Amendment rights should protect ads for online gambling.

My SearchDay story today, Lawsuit Filed Over Search & Gambling Ads (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3397101), recaps some of the issues and actions above. We've also had some limited discussion in these threads:

Ad Policies Summed Up (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=992)
Google AdWords Policy on Online gambling related ads (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1083)
Overture policy against online gambling related listings (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1084)

In this thread, how about a discussion on the issue overall. Should the search engines be taking such ads? Should they not? And if they are going to have policies, do you find those policies not being honored?

[David Wallace]

Well seeing that gambling is illegal except for certain areas such as Vegas, Indian reservations, etc., they probably are better NOT to show them (unless they can figure out someway to determine exactly where the searcher is standing at the time they conduct their search - can anyone say Big Brother).

Other than that, better to be safe than sorry IMO. Search engines such as Google and Overture are making plenty of money without catering to gambling sites. Why risk a lawsuit?

Now to look at it from another angle. Here in Arizona, we have casinos but only on Indian reservations. However, there are billboards advertising those casinos on non-Indian land, radio spots, television commercials, etc. So we have widespread advertising, but for casinos that are legally allowed to exist.

So with this in mind, should search engines then be able to run ads for casinos or gambling venues that are operating within legal rights? Is it worthwhile for them to try to police such a policy?

[Incubator]

IMHO, its a political government issue at this point. should the politicians put a cap on this? I dont think so, this would just be a start for banning anything that the "morality" squad doesnt agree with . I'm sure as soon as you see the morality in the US government change you'll will see Google, and Overture back it.
The publishers themselves are the true ones making money on this PPC model with sky rocketing prices, they probally will hop back on it as soon as it settles down. Online casino ad buyings account for millions of dollars I cant see the publishers just saying" oh well"
The scariest part about this is that it's just a start as soon as they ban one there will be more to follow

my 2 cents

Wc

[St0n3y]

Now to look at it from another angle. Here in Arizona, we have casinos but only on Indian reservations. However, there are billboards advertising those casinos on non-Indian land, radio spots, television commercials, etc. So we have widespread advertising, but for casinos that are legally allowed to exist.

The pretty much sums up the flaw in the lawsuit. Legal Indian casinos run adds that air or show in places where gambling is NOT legal, in hopes of bringing people in. I think Vegas does that quite a effectively as well. You'll see LV ads in many states where gambling is not allowed.

I say the lawsuit gets squashed, but then there are some pretty dumb-ass judges in CA!

[Incubator]

IMHO i believe the online gambling ad spending will be back with full force.This is good.
They managed to survive the "visa" and "mastercard" billing problems and BTW that issue has now just hitting adult websites real hard right now, This break in online advertising is quiet a good idea from another angle, that is, it may eventually weed out some of the less then ethical affiliates that are just soaking the main publishers

cheers

WC

[AussieWebmaster]

The thing of it is gambling in most states is still illegal. The states that make a huge profit from it are seeing drops in their income due to online gambling. The lobbyists are not out for online as they are for legal places that comp legislators and insure their futures.
This form of gambling cannot be taxed, operates in many cases offshore and is only growing. Hey they even talk about the ones who qualify for the World Series of Poker and other tournaments.. that publicity is free...

[Incubator]

Hey they even talk about the ones who qualify for the World Series of Poker and other tournaments.. that publicity is free...But dont you think the past advertising online casinos have done, has had an impact already to boost the interest in that industry such as poker, online casinos account for millions and millions of dollars and have given gambling a new light. The WSOP would not have the weight that it does now if it was for online casinos. Today, tier 1 online casinos (regulated as land based) which can be counted on one hand, already are governed through the roof. Unfortunately it seems like this issue will come down to "free speech" for both sides to debate.

Like i said earlier, just the fact of the ban on casino advertising will open the door for any other ban down the road to come and as we have all seen now with the Google IPO capitalism is on a come back

:)

WC

[dannysullivan]

I say the lawsuit gets squashed, but then there are some pretty dumb-ass judges in CA!
On behalf of my fellow Californians, I must moderate your comment to remind there are dumb-ass judges everywhere (and lots of smart ones, as well). :)

[St0n3y]

As a former Californian, I must concede your point. It was an easy cheap shot to take as CA judges have been mane news quite a few times in the past year. But yep, lots of bad judges in every state, and as for the good ones, we really don't hear much about them, unfortunately.

It will be interesting to see what happens on this lawsuite, however. The more I think about it, if it does not get quashed, it may open the door for regulation of online gambling. I have mixed feelings on regulating anything on the internet. Some things must be, some things shouldn't be.

[AussieWebmaster]

On behalf of my fellow Californians, I must moderate your comment to remind there are dumb-ass judges everywhere (and lots of smart ones, as well). :)
Danny I thought you were officially now an ex-pat English resident.

[Incubator]

Hey Danny, since you are located in the U.K can you put some light behind the UK/European PPC industry over there. Currently we used alot of it , due to regulations and we are seeing some great conversions.I would be interested in finding out anything you can share currently on that issue


cheers

Thanks for a great thread

WC

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

I am not managing any gambling sites, but from a quick look at Google it appears that thy show no AdWords for gambling keywords to danes (I'm in Denmark).

According to local Danish laws it is ilegal to market og help market any gambling sites beside the official state lotteries and betting. So, it appears that Google are respecting those laws here.

[St0n3y]

So, it appears that Google are respecting those laws here.

Gambling itself (ouside of indian casinos) is illegal in CA, however advertising for casino's is NOT. I may be wrong about that, so somebody correct me if I am. To me it appears that a couple of sue-happy bozos gambled, lost money, and want to blame the advertisers rather than themselves.

$10 says that if they lose there will be another internet related lawsuite filed by the same guys within a year.

[Incubator]

Gambling itself (ouside of indian casinos) is illegal in CA, however advertising for casino's is NOT. .
Great post ston3y, along that train of though....I'm sure there are a few "no liquor or dry counties" in the USA.... but Im sure a "BUD" commercial or 2 makes it's way to the local area television channels

cheers

WC

:eek:

[mcanerin]

There are a couple of problems with all this - locality.

You can go almost anywhere in the world and find different laws. For example, in the old Taliban controlled Afghanistan, it was illegal to show a human being in a photograph - so that picture of my smiling face on my website was clearly illegal. Different countries have different laws regarding nudity and age of consent, which affects the adult industry. When I was in the Turks and Caicos Islands, I discovered that it was illegal for locals (belongers) to gamble, but ok for "ex-pats". So it was based on citizenship, rather than location.

So it's fairly difficult to comply with laws at the best of times. Even if you restrict certain results in certain countries, it's extremely easy to get around it from a user standpoint (Megaproxy, anyone?).

The most clear way of doing it is the fact that a company has to obey the laws of the jurisdiction that company is in. Which would be California, and depending on other things, other offices as well :http://www.google.com/corporate/address.html

Which would be interesting from a compliance viewpoint. I don't envy their legal dept.

So regardless of my local laws, Google would have to start by obeying IT'S local laws, then move out from there. And it can only restrict itself more, not use other jurisdictions to be able to disobey Federal and CA law.

So I guess the question is: What is CA law on this matter? That would be the most clear starting point.

Ian

[Incubator]

So I guess the question is: What is CA law on this matter? That would be the most clear starting point.

IanHello, I am not a resident of CA nor do I live in the US, the closest I could come to find the info was at http://www.gambling-law-us.com/State-Laws/California/

funny thing though when i did a search at Google for :

california law online gambling

This was the following return in the first position :

http://www.google.com/search?q=california+law+online+gambling&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N

Something like:

GAMBLING ONLINE - casino gambling - internet gambling online
... gambling gambling history california gambling gambling online ... casino gambling casino
online gambling game video ... gambling gambling net gambling law free casino ...
onlineweb.host.sk/casinocasinos/onlinegambling.html - 53k

Now that spamming should be illegal!

:D

cheers

Wc

[AussieWebmaster]

There are legal card houses in California... though technically not casinos as the house is only the conduit at a fee... the gambling is between the punters.
And in many states - such as New York - where there are no casinos it is legal to play poker so long as the 'house' is not making a profit... so private games etc. are allowed... so in many cases online poker would be legal.

[Incubator]

New York - where there are no casinos it is legal to play poker so long as the 'house' is not making a profit... so in many cases online poker would be legal.
I agree Aussie, but the problem can and will lie in some peoples eyes that...."if the online casino being the "house, didnt make a profit, there would be no online casinos to play" The majority of Tier 1 online casinos convert that cash right back into advertising dollars to get more sign-ups, the real big money is seen in the end or over a period they are not advertising. But within that industry advertising always continues to roll along.

cheers
WC

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Without being a lawyer, I do know that the marketing laws, which the anti-marketing laws on gambling in Denmark is part of, is targeting anyone that market to Danish (or European) people - no matter where they are. Off course, if you do not have any valuables here it is probably very limited what they can do you, but it actually gives 6 month in prisson now. So at least, don't go on vacation here if they grab you - too "expensive" to be any fun :eek:

[Incubator]

if you do not have any valuables here it is probably very limited what they can do you, but it actually gives 6 month in prisson now. :eek:
Jailing people for advertising :eek: thats scary....feels like a new version of
"THX-1138 " coming along :)

Cheers

Wc

[mcanerin]

The problem is the definition of "marketing to", not to mention issues of personal responsibility.

Here is a small example. It's illegal here in Alberta, Canada to paint wooden ladders. There was probably a good safety reason at one point, but now it's just one of those funny leftover rules.

I should preface my remarks by admitting that I actually AM a lawyer (though I don't practice publicly, and never have) and usually have a proper regard for the law, but I'm very aware of some truly boneheaded ones that tend to bring the whole profession into disrepute.More Silly Laws (http://www.main.com/~anns/other/humor/sillylaws.html)

But lets say that it was also illegal to "market" painted wooden ladders to Albertans, as well (it's not, but work with me here - I'm exaggerating for effect...). So, in desparate need to find out what the big deal is with all those ladder painting crazy people outside of my province was, I hop in my car, drive across the border, and visit the first hardware store I see. Lo and behold! A bunch of fancy painted wooden ladders. After gazing rapturously at the forbidden fruit of artificially colored tree-byproduct manual elevation devices, I grab a glossy brochure and race home, feeling all guilty and dirty. ;)

Of course, my wife, who has a second sense about these things, immediately knows I've been up to something. As soon as I go out, she tears apart my garage, and, ignoring the large pile of "SEO Babe Monthly" mags, triumphantly discovers the brochure. Which is in Alberta. And thus marketing wooden ladders to Albertans. For Shame!

As I'm being led away in handcuffs to the intense embarrasment of my family, I overhear the police issuing an arrest warrant for - you guessed it - the owner of the hardware store, as well as the printer of the brochure and manufacturer of the painted wooden ladders. They'd better not show their faces around THIS province ever again! Talk of SWAT team action is bandied about.

Stupid? YES! It would be one thing if the brochure manufacturer had gone and mailed the brochure to everyone in Alberta, but should they be held responsible for MY actions? I was the one who went and got it!

Unless you happen to have some nasty adware on your system, no one "forces" you to type in a URL, no one forces you to do a search on gambling, and no one forces you to click on an ad. It's not like gambling ads show up when you are doing a search on sheep shearing, you have to be looking for it, which is, IMO, roughly the same as driving across the border. And even then you still have to click on the ad (or pick up the brochure).

One problem with complaining about illogical laws is that in reality there is no rule that says that a law has to be logical. It can be totally illogical. Don't get me started on several of the EU laws, or many NAFTA ones, for that matter. A large portion of practicing law is knowing when to use logic to help your client, and when to turn off your brain and just do things they way they have been outlined. Choose the wrong thing at the wrong time and your client suffers for it.

This was a bit of a rant, sorry - I don't have any answers here, just frustrations. Maybe Google should have a warning label - "Warning! Search At Your Own Risk! If You Look For Something Illegal in Your Jurisdiction, You Will Probably Find It, And We Don't take Any Responsibility For The Results - Caveat Emptor".

Ian

[Incubator]

With the ban on PPC for online casinos it also forces some other techniques that lets say are less then "ethical" (still debatable) for promoters to brand a product. Case in point, if Google Yahoo and Overture were serious about this matter they should remove the free indexing all together....how hard would it be to write the algo to omit those keyphrases for indexing. That being said, why dont they start here first:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=buy+guns+online&meta=

There shouldnt even be an index for the above string ...yet there is and always will be.

Seems the laws and common sense do not go hand in hand

Cheers

WC

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

mcanerin, I believe you interpret the "market to" laws wrong. Thats not how I see they are managed here. In your ladder example you drove to another state to pick up the marketing - that would be legal. On the other hand, if you had phoned them and they send you the ilegal marketing to your home adress that would be ilegal ... To stay with your ladder analogy.

To most people there may not be a difference, but you are a lawyer so you should be able to understand such things :)

On one hand I do not like the "market to" - on the other hand I think any democratic country should have the right to set its own limits on what it will allow. All countries have limits. USA have their own, EU and the individual have theirs. There may be good reasons that Germany and France do not allow you to deal with Nazi collectables. I think the French and German people should be allowed to make that choice if that's what they want.

There is nothing technical that prevents the searh engines from limiting certain content to certain countries. We've seen that with the China and France cases. The only reasons I can find that they do not do it with gamling right now is because they do not want to show any sign of responsibility and that noone has specifically asked them to do it. Once they start to clean it up it has to be perfect or else they put themself in risk of legal actions.

[Casino City]

Just thought I'd chime in for a moment. I'm Michael Corfman, President & CEO of Casino City, the company that just filed a lawsuit against the DoJ to establish the first amendment right to advertise online gaming in the United States. Danny recently added a mention about our site at the end of the article that links to this thread. :)

While our suit is quite different that the private California class action suit, they certainly are on a related topic. We have kind of cut to the chase though, because constitutional free speech rights have to apply in all 50 states. We also don't support geo-targeted gambling advertisements, which also avoids many of the issues raised in the California lawsuit. We have some very good attorneys (our lead attorney is the same constitutional lawyer that represented Bush and oversaw all of the Florida 2000 election litigation that won him the election), and he's successfully argued three cases before the supreme court. You can read all of the details of our case on a small website we have built, and are updating as the case progresses. The URL is Online.CasinoCity.com/FirstAmendment/ (http://online.casinocity.com/firstamendment/).

Fundamentally, in our opinion, advertising online casinos and sportsbooks is constitutionally protected free speech. Also, in the state of Lousiana, where our corporation is legally domiciled, and where are servers that publish online advertising are located, state law specifically permits advertising online gaming sites.

[Incubator]

Best wishes to you Michael, I hope Casino City sets a presidence on this agenda

I wish you all the success possible

cheers

WC

[seomontreal]

There is a great deal of debate as to whether or not advertising should be allowed for online casinos...

My beef comes from the lack of fair implementation by Google on this policy. Right now, a search for blackjack returns 3 paid listings...and the first listing links to an online casino.

What about all the other casinos who have had their ads banned...and yet everyday one manages to squeak through.

What is more baffling is that Google is manually reviewing PPC ads in all industries - we run campaigns for clients in a multitude of industries and each one of them has been scrutinized within a few days of launching an Adwords campaign.

So if this advertising is going to be banned, I'd like to see it be consistent across the board ;-)

Oh - the ad that I mentioned appears to be a book - but one click through to the site makes it obvious that it is a casino :-(

[St0n3y]

I think the one question that has not been asked regarding the CA lawsuite is this: what keyword phrases were the "plantiffs" searching for that pulled up the casino ads? I would think that you have to go looking for casinos in order to find casinos. This places another hole in the lawsuite, as I see it.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&i...uns+online&meta=

There shouldnt even be an index for the above string ...yet there is and always will be.

Why? There is nothing illegal about owning a gun (except maybe a few places in the U.S.) and the search results didn't appear to pull up anything advocating improper use of a gun.

The problem with regulating web content as wtih the Casino suite and the opinion of gun related sites being pulled up is that they have to be based on somebody's opinion. What makes one persons opinion more right than anothers? There are a few (very few) cases where the internet should be regulated, but that is only in cases of sites condoning illegal activity. Back to the Casino suite, gambling is only "kind of" illegal. You can do it at the gaming casinos, and you can do it in many other states, and they all advertize in CA.

This is very different than advertising for NAMBLA, where regulating web content should clearly be in place.

[Incubator]

This is very different than advertising for NAMBLA, where regulating web content should clearly be in place.
thanks Ston3y, well said. Maybe I "jumped the gun " so to speak :) on that choice of advertising, my personal opinions came through there :eek:

I agree 100% on the NAMBLA area and it should be removed completely

Cheers

WC

[AussieWebmaster]

Ad Reducto Absurdum.... if it holds true at the bizarre end it holds true throughout

[Shoko]

Am I right or am I wrong ?

we tried to open a campaign for Backgammon game
Google disapproved it for being an "online gambling" campaign
YET,we have colleagues advertising on Google Adwords on exactly the same keywords, exactly the same ads to the exactly same countries and languages ... with URL's to different sites that all has only one purpuse - downloads download downloads
and get money each time someone play for money

when we ask Google for explanation all we hear from them is:
check our editorial guidelines and online gambling policy

My guess is: Google has two different policies - a formal one, and a money making one

question is: can anyone tell me how do I get myself inot the "making money policy" by google ? ;-)



Shoko

[AussieWebmaster]

It always seems to be easier to add things once you have an account opened and running..... have any other sites non-backgammon related?

[Shoko]

we manage a few other campaigns for some of our clients
we tried opening a new ad group in one of our clients accounts, and post ads for Backgammon

Google's team disapproved this almost immidiatly ! :(

any other suggestions ?

[AussieWebmaster]

Is your sccess based out of Isreal? And does Isreal have a ban on gambling online?

Sometimes the countries you advertise in may have an impact... have you tried being specific about the countries your ads are running at. That could possibly help... find out what countires allow gambling online.

[Shoko]

thanks Aussie

to your questions:
we have countries and territories well defined in Google -aiming the campaign only to Sweden (!)

AW Account run out of Israel but ads show only in Sweden
farther more - we have colleagues here doing the same thing with great success...

its looks more to me that Google is trying to prevent more new players from getting into advertising on gambling and stuff like this...
can it be ?