Tech Platforms Face Growing Scrutiny Over Online Gambling Ads
18 September 2026
Tech platforms such as Google, Meta and Apple are under increasing pressure to take stronger action against online gambling advertisements that span illegal promotion, privacy breaches and user safety. A new study has found that 86% of 624 UK-licensed gambling websites break advertising rules, and watchdogs are stepping up their warnings.
In September, Swansea University's GREAT Centre found that the vast majority of UK-licensed gambling websites reviewed were noncompliant with GDPR. The privacy regulator also called out a common tactic of starting data collection before users had given consent.
In an open letter, the Betting and Gaming Council urged Britain’s biggest tech platforms to take stronger action against illegal gambling promotion, also citing concerns about advertising on social media, search engines and digital advertising.
Illegal operators are reaching consumers through unlicensed, user safety-loophole sites
"On top of undermining the law-abiding operators and society's intention to minimise harm, unlicensed operators do not carry out required customer protection checks and do not pay any UK tax," the BGC said.
The BGC's warning specifically highlighted ads for "not on GamStop" sites targeting people who have self-excluded from gambling. A study cited by the BGC found coordinated illegal gambling promotion during the World Cup targeting UK viewers across several platforms, each named. It identified more than 30 unregulated gambling websites using content, influencers and video to reach local audiences.
The BGC, Britain's largest gambling industry trade association, says the illegal platforms use carefully segmented adtech to reach their targets: tactics involving deep metadata analysis that, under the UK's data protection law, can require user consent before action is taken.
Adtech researchers have also suggested that gambling websites may be sneaking identifying information such as cookie IDs, device-related data and personal info from third-party analytics and ads into their GDPR compliance processes in order to track users as they visit partner publishers.
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Such tracking and the sharing of data between websites allows gambling accounts to track users as they surf related publishers, without disclosing that they do so. "These regular ID-sharing exchanges, which aren't reported in cookies, means that gambling operators and advert networks could easily tag users against a database of known identities," says Andreas Christodoulou, vice-dean registrar at Netcraft, the analysts.
Google and Croatia clamp down on gambling ads
In the past five days, Google has introduced a worldwide restriction on the placement of online gambling ads against youth-related content. It also announced Croatia-specific ad restrictions that will come into effect at the end of next month.
Croatia, where Google is the most-used search engine, finally introduced a national ban on most online gambling advertising on 1 January this year.
Philippe Cremer, an SEO expert, concluded that the Croatian decision paved the way for Google to secure a new internet ad market. Google is assumed to be forging a number of such regulation-compliant market deals in countries such as Japan and Brazil.
A recent Federal Office of the Australian Information Commissioner review drew attention to how online platforms can create detailed user profiles and use them to target ads. It recommended tightening the rules around marketing to children and introducing requirements for privacy impact assessments, industry watchers say.
The data suggests that online consumer protection generally is where the regulatory focus will settle. Social-media influencers in the UK are increasingly advertising gambling products, in some cases without the requisite licences and without always having the means and methods to protect children and vulnerable adults.