Google Deprecates Gambling Certificate Flags From RTB API

The API change is the technical follow-through to an Authorized Buyers policy shift announced earlier in the quarter. On September 20, Google deprecated the CERTIFICATE_REQUIRED status and missingCertificate field in its Real-time Bidding API release notes. Google said the fields were no longer needed following policy changes under which certificates are not required for gambling and social casino games in this context.

The API change came several weeks after a broader Authorized Buyers update.

Open Auction Lost the Google Certificate Requirement

As seen in Google’s Authorized Buyers release archive, on August 24, Google said Authorized Buyers would no longer need Google certification to promote online and offline gambling-related content in the Open Auction. Local laws, country restrictions and other gambling advertising requirements still apply.

The technical change followed on September 20. CERTIFICATE_REQUIRED had been one of the possible serving statuses returned for a creative. missingCertificate could indicate that a certificate was needed before the creative could serve in some regions.

Both are now deprecated.

Google Ads Still Has a Separate Certification Track

That is different from the Google Ads change that took effect on September 14. 15M covered that update ahead of its launch: certification eligibility rules were expanded across the Gambling and games policy, with compliance history at both account and Manager Account level affecting eligibility. The two changes therefore run in different directions because they apply to different parts of Google’s advertising stack.

15M compared the sequence: Authorized Buyers changed its Open Auction rules on August 24, the wider Google Ads certification update took effect on September 14, and the RTB API certificate fields were deprecated six days later.

For an Authorized Buyer using the Open Auction, those API elements are no longer needed to signal a Google certificate requirement for gambling creatives. That does not create a certificate-free route for the same advertiser through Google Ads.