Gambling help companies have voiced frustration about advertisements for their rehabilitation services being automatically blocked online, amid a rise in gambling advertising.
According to The Guardian, advertisements that mention gambling are often automatically blocked by search engines or social media companies to adhere with their government regulations and their own advertising rules.
The Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation (VRGF) has had online promotions for its treatment service, Gambler’s Help, immediately removed by Google. The foundation has voiced its belief that the tech giant does not distinguish gambling harm reduction schemes from regular gambling ads.
A VRGF spokesperson told The Guardian that the process for unblocking ads is lengthy and ineffective. They added: “The foundation’s concern is that people who are at risk of gambling harm are being exposed to ads that encourage them to gamble while ads for help service are being blocked. This has been an ongoing issue for years.
“This has become such a problem with Google’s display and video advertising network that the foundation no longer buys this inventory.”
A Google spokesperson opposed the VRGF’s claims, affirming to The Guardian that precautions are in place “keep ads safe and appropriate for everyone”.
“In this instance, our systems erred strongly on the side of caution and inadvertently blocked some ads from this advertiser. Once we became aware of this, we worked quickly to have these ads reinstated,” the Google spokesperson said. “We’re constantly working to improve the accuracy of our enforcement systems and we apologise for any inconvenience this caused the advertiser.”
Subscribe to Marketing Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest marketing news sent straight to your inbox each morning
As well as VRGF, a US-based gambling help service has also complained after having its ads blocked by TikTok. An employee for the social media company told the company that after speaking with their team and TikTok’s ad policy department, “they are unable to work around the issues that are preventing you from advertising.”
The TikTok staff member added: “My colleague had a very similar issue with a client that was looking to advertise a group where men help support each other struggling with addiction, and no matter what they did, it was impossible to work around. I wish there was more that could be done.”
