Google Ads Gambling Certification 2026: Requirements by Country
Gambling is the most heavily gated ad category Google runs. Not the most expensive, not the most competitive — the most gated. You can have budget, creatives, a clean payment method and a licensed product, and still be unable to serve a single impression because one of five separate checks says no.
I'm Mike. I review the payment and account side of this at YeezyPay, and gambling advertisers are the clients who ask us the most questions that aren't actually about payments. They're about certification. So here's the map: how Google's gambling certification works in 2026, what changed this year, and what each country demands before Google will even look at your application.
One thing to fix up front. Certification is granted per country and per destination. There is no global gambling approval. Google's policy says you need "a valid local license for every region you intend to target," and that sentence does more damage to campaign plans than anything else on the page.
Certification starts with a licence document, not an ad account.
The five gates
Think of certification as five checks in sequence. Fail any one and the rest don't matter.
1. Approved country. Google lists roughly 60 countries where online gambling ads can run at all. Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Norway, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Türkiye, Uganda, Ukraine, UAE, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam. If your target isn't there, stop reading and change the target.
2. Local licence. Held by the operator or broker, issued by the competent authority in that exact country.
3. Eligible domain. This is the gate that kills the most applications, and it's the one nobody warns you about. Google's wording: "Certification is not available for sites hosted on free platforms, or those using a sub-domain whose root domain is a third party platform host or has no association with gambling." The domain has to be owned and controlled by the business. A landing page on someone else's platform is dead on arrival.
4. Compliant landing page. Age warning, responsible-gambling and addiction resources, terms and conditions, and a footer carrying the licensee name, the licence number and a privacy policy that identifies the data controller. If you promote a mobile app, you need a working link from the licensed domain to the official store listing — and a reciprocal link back to that registered domain from the store listing itself.
5. Account policy health. New in 2026, and the one that changed the strategy for everyone. More on it below.
Two structural rules worth memorising. A single Google Ads account cannot hold an online gambling certification and a social casino game certification at the same time — those are mutually exclusive, so you need separate accounts. And you must recertify after any material change to the information you submitted; Google says failure to do so "could result in your account being suspended."
What changed in 2025–2026
This category moved more than any other in the last 18 months. The dated version:
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| 25 Sep 2024 | Germany: GGL licence becomes mandatory; aggregator-style affiliate pages lose eligibility, existing certifications revoked |
| Jan 2025 | Brazil: only locally licensed or authorised operators may advertise |
| 18 Jun 2025 | Brazil: licensed betting and casino apps allowed in Play Store and Google Ads; bet.br domain required |
| 30 Sep 2025 | Brazil: aggregators of any kind barred from advertising |
| 12 Dec 2025 | US: lottery couriers accepted in Arkansas, Montana, New Jersey and New York, with a state licence |
| 23 Mar 2026 | Global: accounts applying in any gambling category must show "good policy health"; MCC-level accountability introduced |
| 29 Jun 2026 | France: statutory lottery monopoly operators added as eligible entities; .fr domain and ANJ registration still required |
| 10 Aug 2026 | Authorized Buyers: end-advertiser certification dropped in 37 markets — programmatic only, Google Ads unchanged |
| 26 Aug 2026 | New application forms and standards go live for online gambling, non-casino games and social casino games |
| 14 Sep 2026 | March's policy-health requirement expanded to every category under the policy |
Read the 23 March and 14 September entries together and the direction is obvious. Google tightened the front door while quietly widening a side one. Certification eligibility is now partly a property of your account structure, not only of your licence.
Every flag is a separate application and a separate licence.
Requirements country by country
Below is Google's own language, condensed. I've kept the phrasing close to the source because paraphrasing this policy is how people get it wrong.
| Country | Who must hold the licence | Extra conditions |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom (excl. Northern Ireland) | Operators of online bingo, sports betting, casino games and lotteries registered with the Gambling Commission, with a valid operating licence number | — |
| Germany | Operator or broker with a valid German licence that permits online advertising via Google Ads | Aggregator landing pages ineligible since Sep 2024 |
| Netherlands | Licensed by the Kansspelautoriteit | Untargeted ads banned since Jul 2023; sports sponsorship banned since Jul 2025 |
| France | ANJ registration with a valid operating licence; statutory lottery monopoly also eligible since Jun 2026 | .fr domain required |
| Canada | Lotteries: government-run or federally licensed. Sports betting, online casino, fantasy sports: licensed by the province | Must target only that province |
| United States | Lotteries: state-run entities only. Horse racing, sports betting, online casino: state-licensed in states where legal | Lottery couriers eligible in AR, MT, NJ, NY |
| Brazil | Licensed or authorised by the relevant Brazilian authorities | bet.br domain; aggregators barred |
| Spain | Registered with the Spanish gambling authority | — |
| Italy | Operator must be a state-run entity | Narrow eligibility |
| Sweden | Licensed by Spelinspektionen | — |
| Denmark | Danish Gambling Authority licence | Lotteries and scratch cards: state operator only |
| Belgium | Belgian gambling authority licence | — |
| Mexico | Registered with Secretaría de Gobernación, valid licence number | — |
| Japan | State-licensed lotteries and sports betting only | No online casino |
| Philippines | State-licensed or state-run | — |
| Argentina | Province-run or province-licensed | Eligible provinces include Buenos Aires, City of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Entre Ríos, Mendoza, Santa Fe |
| Kenya | BCLB licence | Plus a separate authorisation to advertise |
| Nigeria | Licensed by the state gambling authority in an eligible state | — |
| South Africa | Lotteries: National Lotteries Commission. Sports betting: provincial regulator | — |
Notice what's missing from that list, and from Google's full list: Malta, Cyprus and Curaçao. An MGA licence is not an EU passport for advertising. It does not unlock certification in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain or Italy. Each of those wants its own local licence, full stop. This is the single most expensive misunderstanding I see — operators budget for one licence, plan a pan-European launch, then discover they've bought access to zero Google-approved markets.
Where the markets actually are
Certification is work, so it helps to know which jurisdictions repay it.
Brazil is the standout. The regulated market opened 1 January 2025 and gross gaming revenue hit R$20.07bn in the first half of 2026, up 15.3% year on year, with full-year projections around R$54.3bn. There are 85 licences covering 187 authorised sites and roughly 30.9 million unique bettors identified by CPF. Federal tax receipts from betting climbed from R$2.2bn in January–April 2025 to R$4.5bn over the same months in 2026. The first licensed year produced about $7bn in GGR.
The UK remains the deepest mature market: total gross gambling yield of £16.8bn in the April 2024 to March 2025 financial year, up 7.3%, with remote casino, betting and bingo at £7.8bn and growing 13.1%. The regulatory trade-off is real though — online slot stakes capped at £5 per spin from 9 April 2025, £2 for 18 to 24 year olds from 21 May 2025, and a statutory levy of 0.1% to 1.1% of GGY replacing voluntary funding.
Ontario is the quiet success story. Cash wagers of roughly C$98.3bn in calendar 2025, up 26%, net gaming revenue near C$4bn, up 34%, and about C$807m in iGaming tax, across 47 operators and 81 platforms. But AGCO bans public advertising of inducements, bonuses and credits — those can only appear on your own site or go to opted-in direct marketing. It also bans active athletes in gambling ads. Plan creative accordingly.
And the United States: sports betting is legal in 39 states plus DC as of mid-2026, roughly 30 of those with online or mobile, while online casino exists in only 8 states — New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut, West Virginia, Rhode Island and Maine, with Maine legalised but not yet launched.
Running gambling ads from a restricted country?
Certification solves policy. It doesn't solve billing. If your company is registered somewhere Google won't accept a payment method from — or your cards keep declining on a verified account — that's the part we handle. YeezyPay gives advertisers in restricted countries working access to Google Ads through agency accounts, with deposits that clear and support that speaks your language.
Prohibited categories get suspended on detection, without warning.
What's prohibited outright
No certification path exists for these, so don't build a business around them:
- Unlicensed operators, in any market
- Crypto casinos
- Sweepstakes casinos
- Aggregator and affiliate sites that offer gambling, or link to gambling services they own
- Mahjong played for money, in Asia-Pacific
The affiliate rule deserves unpacking because it's where most of the grey area lives. Affiliates are allowed — but only as information and comparison destinations. Google's line: destinations featuring online-gambling promoting content "must not offer gambling services themselves or link to gambling services they own." Germany went further in September 2024 and made aggregator-style pages stacking multiple operators' offers ineligible, revoking certifications that already existed. Brazil barred aggregators entirely from 30 September 2025.
Also worth knowing: gambling ads can't run on Gmail ads, Shopping ads, Reservation display ads, Google TV, or the YouTube masthead. And offline, land-based gambling is allowed without certification in markets where it's legal. That last distinction gets missed constantly — a physical casino promoting its venue is not in the same bucket as an online operator.
Social casino games have their own regime. They're permitted in two defined country groups. Group 1 covers most of Western Europe plus Australia, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, Israel, South Africa, Nigeria, the UK and the US. Group 2 is Hong Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. These ads must disclaim that they are not real-money gambling and must not use the logos, names or marks of real-money gambling brands. Google suspends violations "upon detection and without prior warning," and remember that a social casino certification can't coexist with an online gambling certification in the same account.
India: the cautionary tale
India is the clearest example of national law overriding everything else. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 was introduced on 20 August 2025, passed the Rajya Sabha on 21 August and was signed on 22 August. It bans all online money games regardless of whether they involve skill or chance. Section 6 bans promotion and advertising specifically, with penalties up to INR 5 million and two years' imprisonment. An estimated 86% of India's online gaming revenue came from formats that are now prohibited.
India isn't in Google's approved list for real-money gambling ads. It appears only in social-casino Group 2. If an agency pitches you Indian RMG traffic in 2026, that's a conversation worth ending.
Agency accounts, MCCs and the policy-health trap
Here's where I'll give you my honest read, because the internet is full of bad advice on this point.
Google's policy explicitly permits an agency to apply on a licensee's behalf. The wording: customers that are not operators or brokers, "such as advertising agencies or execution companies for lotteries," must be authorized by the licence holder to advertise and to accept the Advertising Gambling Terms and Conditions on their behalf. That's a legitimate, documented route. It's the lane a serious agency account operates in.
What it is not is a way around certification. The March and September 2026 updates made account and MCC policy health a gate on eligibility. An MCC that accumulates revocations can lose the ability to apply for any new gambling certificate, and can have existing ones pulled. Which means the old playbook — cycle through accounts, buy an aged MCC, apply again — now actively destroys the asset you're buying. Google built that rule to kill exactly that behaviour, and in my view it worked.
Scale check on enforcement: Google blocked or removed over 8.3 billion ads in 2025, up from 5.1 billion in 2024, suspended 24.9 million advertiser accounts, and shipped 35 policy updates. Gambling is named among its most-restricted categories. This is not a system you outlast.
A concrete case from our side. A licensed operator came to us last year targeting three European markets with one Malta licence, convinced certification was a formality their agency would sort out. It wasn't. Two of the three markets needed local licences they didn't have, and their landing pages sat on a subdomain of a third-party host — disqualified under the domain rule before anyone even read the licence. We could fix the billing in a week. The domain migration and the local licensing took them four months. The lesson we now give every gambling client on day one: get the domain and the licence right before you worry about who pays Google, because we can solve the second problem and nobody can shortcut the first.
A practical sequence
- Confirm your target country is on Google's approved list for your vertical.
- Confirm you hold — or are authorized in writing by someone who holds — a licence issued by that country's regulator.
- Audit the domain: owned by the business, not a free platform, not a third-party-host subdomain.
- Build the landing page compliance set: age warning, responsible-gambling resources, T&Cs, footer with licensee name and licence number, privacy policy naming the data controller.
- Clean up account policy health before applying, not after. Separate accounts for online gambling and social casino.
- Apply per country. Recertify on any material change.
- Sort out billing that won't fail mid-flight.
One closing opinion. The 2026 changes are good for anyone who intends to operate properly. Certification has gone from a form you submit to a property of how you've built your business — domain, licence, account history. That's harder, slower and more expensive. It's also the first version of this policy where doing it right is cheaper than doing it wrong.
Policy pages shift. Google made 35 updates to its ad policies in 2025 alone, and the country list changes between revisions. Before you commit budget, open Google's gambling and games policy and read the live country row for your market. Then come talk to us about the payments.
