Google Masthead Gambling Exception Shuts Out Affiliate Advertisers

The wording is narrow. Assets relating to online gambling qualify "excluding advertisers of online-gambling promoting content who are not subject to mandatory state or national gambling registration requirements".

Registration Status Decides Who Gets the Slot

Two advertisers promoting the same casino might find themselves on different sides of that line. The deciding factor is not the creative itself, but whether the advertiser is required to register with a state or national gambling authority.

Aggregator and comparison sites present the clearest example. Google considers them to be online-gambling promoting content, yet the majority have no operating licence.

Under the Gambling and games policy, such content is considered to be aggregator or affiliate sites that provide information about, or compare, other gambling services. It mandates that these sites cannot offer gambling themselves, nor can they link to gambling services that they have ownership of.

Masthead Is the Only Format With a Gambling Carve-Out

Google lists four formats that cannot promote gambling: Gmail ads, Shopping ads, Reservation display ads, and Google TV and YouTube masthead ads. Masthead is the only one of the four that carries an exception at all, by a 15M reading of the policy pages.

There is another exception for daily fantasy sports assets directed at Canada and the United States. Advertisers must also comply with the Gambling and games policy.

What Does It Mean

To affiliates: Masthead is off the table unless the affiliate has its own mandatory registration, so anticipate premium video spend in formats that allow content promotion.

To operators: the slot is available. This is one of the rare instances where a licensed operator does not compete with affiliates for the same inventory.

Google has not disclosed a regional distribution of masthead gambling eligibility. Country-level certification under the Gambling and games policy remains applicable, and modifications to that list are still underway.