Google tightens rules for gambling ads and bans prediction market extensions
Google has updated its gambling and games ads policy to expand its certification requirements to apply to all gambling and games categories.
In March, the search engine introduced new certification policies, which it implied would apply to all categories but appears to have required a fine tune. The enhanced policy will roll out on 14 September.
“All accounts seeking to advertise in any gambling and games category must now demonstrate good policy health,” the announcement stated.
“Manager Accounts (MCCs) with repeated online gambling certificate revocations, or accounts under MCC management that are repeatedly flagged for gambling violations while using a certificate, will forfeit eligibility to apply for any new online gambling certificates and may have existing certifications revoked.”
The policy update reiterated that websites hosted on free subdomains are ineligible for certification and said that domains must be owned and controlled by the certified business.
Meanwhile, the company has said it will ban browser extensions that offer access to prediction markets, such as Polymarket and Kalshi, as of 1 August.
The change will be included in the search engine’s developer program policies. It will prohibit the tools which ease access to prediction markets and offer alerts of contract prices. However, those that do not lead to “real-money” contracts may still be allowed.
“We are expanding our language to explicitly include predictive markets as prohibited products,” a Google statement said. “Extensions that facilitate or enable real-money transactions on predictive outcomes are not allowed. Building and maintaining user trust is paramount. By implementing stricter data collection baselines and clarifying boundaries around prediction markets and AI safety, we ensure that the Chrome Web Store remains an honest, useful, and secure platform.”
This isn’t the first time Google has singled out gambling-adjacent products for restrictions.
In November 2025, Google tightened its advertising rules on social casino games, forbidding the marketing of sweepstakes casinos.
Google’s latest policy updates come after Kalshi slammed a recent report by the Roosevelt Institute, accusing it of containing “significant flaws” that undermined its findings. In a thorough missive on the subject, the prediction market claimed that, “directly or indirectly,” the report had been influenced by the casino industry.
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Google’s gambling perimeter keeps moving
Google’s latest update to its gambling and games policies fits a broader pattern: the company is narrowing the space in which gambling-adjacent businesses can use its platforms, while pushing more compliance responsibility onto advertisers, developers and account managers.
The immediate change is twofold. Google is expanding certification expectations across gambling and games categories and making “good policy health” a condition for accounts seeking to advertise in those areas. It is also moving against Chrome browser extensions that facilitate access to real-money prediction markets, including tools that connect users to markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi or provide alerts tied to contract prices.
The certification expansion is significant because Google’s advertising system has long been a central acquisition channel for online gambling operators, affiliates and related businesses. By tying eligibility to a broader compliance history, the company is not only evaluating individual campaigns but also the conduct of manager accounts and businesses overseeing multiple advertisers. Repeat certificate revocations or recurring gambling violations under a manager account can now affect the ability to apply for new certificates or keep existing ones.
That approach reflects a shift from product-by-product policing toward network-level accountability. It also gives Google more discretion to cut off businesses that appear to be moving campaigns, domains or accounts to preserve access after violations. The company’s insistence that domains be owned and controlled by the certified business, and that free subdomains are ineligible, points to the same concern: ensuring that advertisers cannot obscure responsibility through loosely connected web properties.
Sweepstakes casinos tested the social gaming label
The policy tightening follows an earlier move in which Google banned sweepstakes casino ads, ending a major ambiguity in its treatment of social casino products. The company reclassified sweepstakes casinos as outside the scope of social gaming, adding the line that sweepstake casinos are not social casino games.
That distinction mattered because social casino games can be advertised under Google rules when there is no opportunity to win something of value. Sweepstakes casinos complicated that standard by using dual-currency systems in which players buy or receive one type of digital currency and can redeem another for cash or prizes. Operators have often argued that sweepstakes frameworks distinguish them from gambling, but state regulators have increasingly viewed the model as a workaround for unlicensed betting.
Google’s decision to remove sweepstakes casinos from its social gaming category aligned its advertising standards with the direction of U.S. state enforcement. Several states, including California, Nevada, New Jersey, Connecticut and Montana, have moved against sweepstakes casinos or described them as disguised gambling. New York also passed an online sweepstakes gaming ban in June.
The sweepstakes decision foreshadowed the current prediction-market restriction. In both cases, Google is dealing with products that sit near regulated gambling without always presenting themselves as conventional betting. Rather than wait for a single national legal framework, the company has chosen to draw its own platform boundaries. For businesses that rely on search or display advertising, that can be as consequential as a regulatory prohibition.
India showed how local law drives platform policy
Google’s gambling rules also have become more jurisdiction-specific as governments rewrite gaming laws. In India, the company confirmed that Google Ads will ban rummy and fantasy sports advertisements from Jan. 21, 2026, for campaigns targeting Indian audiences.
The India update was tied to the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, which introduced new classifications for gaming activities under domestic law. Rummy and daily fantasy sports were removed from the list of gambling-related formats approved for advertising in the country. The effect extends beyond operators to affiliates, publishers and marketing agencies that depend on paid search and performance campaigns to acquire users.
India is an important example because rummy and fantasy sports have often been defended as skill-based games rather than gambling. Google’s decision shows how platform policy can shift quickly when legal classifications change, even for formats with large user bases and established advertising ecosystems. It also underscores that Google’s gambling permissions are conditional, not permanent. Approval in one jurisdiction does not imply approval elsewhere, and prior acceptance of a category does not protect it from later removal.
The same logic is visible in the latest prediction-market move. Prediction markets have argued that event contracts are distinct from casino gambling or sports betting, particularly when offered through federally regulated structures. But Google’s Chrome policy update focuses on real-money transactions tied to predictive outcomes. That functional test is broader than a traditional gambling definition and gives the company room to exclude products based on user risk, platform trust and compliance uncertainty.
Regulators are tightening the marketing funnel
Google’s approach mirrors an international regulatory trend that treats advertising, payments and product design as connected parts of gambling oversight. In the Philippines, for example, the state-run regulator has tightened responsible gaming and anti-money laundering controls as digital wagering expands.
PAGCOR Chairman and Chief Executive Alejandro Tengco said the regulator had delinked e-wallets and some payment channels to improve traceability and reduce illicit transactions, part of a wider package described in PAGCOR’s responsible gaming rule changes. The framework also requires tools such as self-exclusion and betting limits, while prohibiting credit cards and cryptocurrencies for wagering.
Those measures address the same risk that large platforms face: rapid access to gambling or gambling-like products through digital channels can heighten consumer harm and complicate enforcement. Payments, identity checks, marketing claims and platform distribution all affect how easily consumers enter betting environments.
Advertising has become a particular focus. PAGCOR partnered with the Ad Standards Council to remove gambling promotions from public spaces and require marketing to meet stricter accuracy and responsibility criteria. Separately, Pasig City banned public gambling advertisements on billboards, public transport, terminals, building wraps, LED screens, posters, brochures and other street-level media, permitting them only within licensed casinos or betting venues.
The local ordinance highlights the political pressure around gambling visibility. Officials have framed advertising limits as a way to protect vulnerable people and reduce cues that may draw individuals back into gambling. Google’s policies operate in a different environment, but the underlying rationale is similar: platforms do not want their infrastructure to amplify products that regulators, politicians or consumer advocates increasingly associate with harm.
Compliance risk is spreading to partners
The latest Google update also raises the stakes for intermediaries. Manager accounts with repeated certificate revocations or accounts repeatedly flagged for gambling violations can lose eligibility for new online gambling certificates and may have existing certifications revoked. That means agencies, affiliates and holding structures can face consequences for the behavior of clients or related accounts.
This echoes developments in regulated markets where payment processors and other service providers are being pulled deeper into compliance systems. In the Philippines, PAGCOR expanded anti-money laundering oversight to include banks and e-wallet providers involved in electronic gaming transactions. The regulator said closer cooperation with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas would allow noncompliance identified by financial supervisors to result in gambling regulatory penalties.
The lesson for gambling-related businesses is that compliance can no longer be limited to the licensed operator. Marketing agencies, software vendors, browser-extension developers, payment firms and affiliate networks all face greater scrutiny if they help users reach regulated or quasi-regulated products.
For prediction markets, the timing is especially sensitive. Kalshi and other operators are trying to define their products as legitimate financial or event-contract markets rather than gambling. Critics, including policy groups and parts of the casino industry, argue that some contracts resemble betting and can evade state gambling safeguards. Google’s decision does not settle that legal debate, but it affects distribution by making Chrome extensions that facilitate real-money predictive outcomes unavailable through the Chrome Web Store.
In practical terms, Google is reducing the gray areas available to fast-growing gambling-adjacent sectors. The company is not banning all discussion, information or simulated play. But when a product enables real-money exposure to gambling-style outcomes, requires gambling certification or depends on ambiguous social gaming claims, Google is signaling that access to its ad network and browser ecosystem will come with tighter conditions and fewer second chances.
