October 16, 2008 | Thursday

Google relax gambling laws for the UK

By Duncan Fisher - Head of Paid Search in News |PPC |Search Engines |Google

Due to recent changes in legislation laws surrounding online gambling advertising, Google had decided as of tomorrow to allow gambling PPC adverts to be shown in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland). They have been speaking direct to clients to ensure all the correct licensing information has been processed in time and there will be a frantic scrap for both clients and their respective agencies to get their accounts setup and put live in time for tomorrow, of which there is no guarantee.

While it was of the opinion that this would happen eventually, the recent economic climate and impact on search revenue streams may have forced Google’s hand here. With broad matched search volumes estimated on “betting” to achieve 1.2 million a month (see Google search volumes below) this will be a huge benefit to both gambling clients and Google. “Casino” comes out higher at over 2 million searches and poker even higher at 3.3 million.

We may well see these search volumes increase over time as users become more aware of the changes and instead of searching through Yahoo / MSN for gambling ads could opt for Google. With possible broad matching / targeting to less gambling specific terms, such as “make money online” there will naturally be a knock on effect to search volumes for other terms as user interest increases.