Why Keyword Prohibitions May Soon be Targeted by Regulators

Posted by Harry Kane on Wednesday, January 15, 2020

As a lucrative and mature marketplace, it should come as no surprise that iGaming is now a prominent target for regulators and the legislature in the UK.

However, the extent to which the market has come under fire has caught some operators off guard, with Parliament having followed the lead set by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) by proposing a number of changes aimed at safeguarding vulnerable players and restricting online gambling activity considerably.

The online advertising practices used by operators have come under fire recently, with a particular emphasis placed on the SEO techniques deployed to target players.

We’ll explore this further below, whilst asking whether increased keyword prohibitions could actually benefit reputable operators in the UK.

How Some Operators Are Targeting Vulnerable Players

It’s online gambling affiliates who have been publicly shamed for deploying questionable SEO practices, with some promotional offers having been reportedly pitched at self-identifying problem gamblers who were searching for GamStop’s self-exclusion scheme.

This issue came to light after an anonymous Twitter user (who’d previously signed up to the national self-exclusion scheme) reported that specific Google searches including the keyword ‘self-exclusion’ were returning promotional results from affiliate marketers.

These marketers were partnered with a number of questionable operators licensed by the jurisdiction of Curacao, who published bonus offers and casino advertisements that were targeted directly at obviously vulnerable players.

Of course, the affiliates justified by their efforts by claiming that some gamblers may have made “an impulsive decision” to sign up for the self-exclusion problem, before having second thoughts.

As a result, the promoted sites were offering players a way to bypass GamStop and resume their gambling activity, whilst absolving themselves from responsibility for each individual gambler’s well-being.

Regardless, there’s no disguising that this represents an unacceptable practice, and one that harms both vulnerable players and the reputation of the iGaming industry as a whole.

What Has Been the Response of the Market Leading iGaming Brands in the UK?

Unsurprisingly, this shocking practice has drawn the ire of regulators and anti-gambling campaigners alike, whilst even some of the market leading brands have been incredibly critical.

The recently-formed Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has echoed these sentiments, with a formal response of Twitter chastising the brands involved whilst re-affirming that UK-licensed operators “do not advertise using search terms linked to phrases related to help and gambling-related harm.”

This is an important consideration, as it should be noted that the operators involved in the controversy were not based on these shores or licensed by the UKGC.

However, some smaller British brands have previously been sanctioned for engaging in similar practices and using potentially exploitative SEO techniques, and it’s with this in mind that the BGC has also pledged to push search firms and the regulator to impose more stringent keyword prohibitions.

This represents one of the first major challenges for the burgeoning trade body, which debuted in 2018 and was established to protect operators against future regulatory and legislative shifts in the marketplace.

What Can Be Done to Safeguard Players and the Wider Industry?

The question that remains, of course, is what action can search firms take to ensure that vulnerable gamblers are protected when browsing online?

Whatever measures are taken, it appears as though search firms such as Google may need some help and guidance to effectively safeguard gamblers. After all, the Independent recently reported that whilst the firm have suspended the offending accounts from its AdWords platform, affiliate marketers continue to hijack keywords pertaining to GamStop and self-exclusion to help promote their products.

This suggests that Google’s supposedly strict gambling-related policies perhaps aren’t been enforced consistent or rigorously enough, so a more collaborative approach may be required to achieve more effective results.

Fortunately, GamStop CEO Fiona Palmer has revealed that the organisation will be looking to work closely with Google and similar search engines in the coming months, in a bid to fine-tune the existing approach and prevent similar instances from occurring in the future.

In particular, GamStop understands the wide range of keyword phrases used by problem gamblers when seeking help online, as not all of these include the term ‘self-exclusion’. This makes it ideally placed to advise search engines on which phrases to prohibit in relation to iGaming operators.

For example, last October saw the prominent UK operator Casumo the subject of a complaint (which was subsequently upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

The central issue was that the operator’s real-time promotions and website appeared on Google’s first page in relation to a user search for “how to unsubscribe from all gambling”, which essentially enabled the firm to target vulnerable players who had yet to receive help for their behaviour.

Preventing this type of issue at source is the primary objective of GamStop and the BGC, and there’s no doubt that a detailed collaborative approach is key to achieving this in the current conditions.

The Last Word – Will We See Keyword Prohibitions Strengthened in 2020?

Whilst the UKGC runs an increasingly tight ship in the form of the iGaming market, the regulator and its affiliated organisations must maintain a proactive approach if they’re to safeguard players effectively.

It’s also important that they consider all potential aspects of gameplay and marketing, with the introduction of stringent keyword prohibitions offering crucial (but easy to underestimate) case in point.

Most importantly of all, it’s crucial to identify the full range of self-help keyword phrases that are being targeted by operators with access to the UK market, which will in turn enable Google to create effective and relevant enforcement policies.

It’s also imperative that such action is taken urgently, primarily because the iGaming market has emerged as a prominent target for an increasingly influential cross-party group in Parliament (namely the APPG Group for Gambling-related Harm).

More specifically, the legislature is already said to be mulling over restricting on lucrative VIP programs amongst UK operators, whilst Conservative politician Iain Duncan-Smith is also championing a £2 betting cap for online slots to match the new FOBT regulations passed in 2018.

With this in mind, neither the regulator or operators can afford to take their eye of the ball, and tackling relatively simple issues such as questionable affiliate marketing strategies can actually afford them a critical advantage in a fast-changing marketplace.