Google Ads: How to Drive Gambling Traffic in 2025

Google is introducing increasingly strict rules for gambling and gaming ads. These changes aim to enhance regulation, increase user safety, and comply with international standards. Despite this tightening of gambling ad policies, Google Ads remains an effective tool for driving traffic to casino platforms. Our partners at TraffCloud share their experience in working with the gambling market and promoting gambling ads under the new conditions.

Gambling affiliate marketing involves attracting new customers interested in gambling. These can include:

In 2025, the primary paid traffic sources in the gambling vertical market are contextual advertising, Facebook, and other social media. However, in terms of dedicated traffic, Google Search is the undisputed leader since its audience is highly interested and already “warmed up.” However, entering this space with high-frequency keywords is quite challenging due to Google’s strict policies. The main challenges in working with this niche are cloaking and account farming.

In terms of paid sources, Bing Ads can be an option, although its moderation can sometimes be even stricter than Google’s. When it comes to conditionally free or “freemium” methods, SEO promotion can be seen as an alternative to contextual advertising in terms of quality.

Competition is extremely high in the gambling sector. The cost per click (CPC) depends on the region, and due to the intense competition, CPC in the gambling vertical market is higher than in other niches, making traffic expensive. In Tier-1 countries (USA, Canada, UK), CPC can reach $10–30, whereas in Tier-2 and Tier-3 countries, it ranges from $1 to $5. To ensure your ad attracts the target audience, both the ad itself and the pre-landing pages must be carefully crafted.

Google’s policies regulate the promotion of gambling-related content. An important point is that gambling ads are only allowed in countries where such activities are legally permitted. To legally promote gambling through Google Ads, an official certification is required. However, experienced advertisers often bypass this requirement using cloaking. However, Google is now significantly restricting search results for uncertified advertisers and continuously tightening promotion rules.

In fact, since November 2024, Google has significantly tightened its gambling ads regulations. However, restrictions started appearing as early as the summer of that year. This led to major difficulties in launching new campaigns and a noticeable increase in ad account bans. In this new landscape, only those who can adapt quickly survive: you need to use new ways to bypass moderation, test different campaign setup approaches, and leverage farmed accounts.

Google also restricts the types of gambling content that advertisers are allowed to promote. Despite allowing online casinos, sports betting, and other activities, illegal gambling — such as unlicensed bookmakers and lottery fraud — is prohibited.

In November 2024, Google Ads made casino promotion more difficult, and another policy change is scheduled for April 14, 2025. Advertisers who fail to comply with the new requirements face account bans in Google Ads.

If you’re not intimidated by these challenges, we’ll explain how to drive traffic to casinos effectively.

The online gambling market is experiencing significant growth and is estimated to be worth $107 billion in 2025. Moreover, legislative changes are creating new markets for promotion. However, this market remains challenging for affiliates, as it is considered a gray area by major platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads. This means there is always a risk of ad account bans. However, it is still possible to successfully drive gambling traffic and generate profit.

Gambling has been legalized in many countries, and others are planning to do so in the near future, thus the emergence of new promising markets with high-spending solvent players can also be expected.

Growth of Mobile Traffic needs to be considered as well: 70% of revenue in this market will be generated by mobile applications. This is important to consider when promoting gambling through Google Ads.

Casinos and betting platforms are required to provide responsible gaming tools, which also affects affiliates. Advertisers must have a gambling ad certification in Google, though this requirement is often bypassed by cloaking.

In 2025, AI is expected to be actively integrated into ad material creation, traffic purchasing automation, and ad optimization. Artificial intelligence has already become an integral part of working with traffic. Google Ads uses AI to optimize headlines, descriptions, and audiences, increasing campaign effectiveness. However, the key skill will be the ability to craft precise prompts to get the desired results from algorithms.

If you want to drive traffic to gambling products, you have three options:

Each media buyer uses their own strategy to set up their ads, but the core principles remains the same:

1. In-depth keyword analysis using tools like SemRush, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner.
2. Testing various types of queries: brand-related, slot-related, cross-branded.
3. Optimization with a negative keyword blacklist, excluding irrelevant queries (e.g., “free,” “scam,” “reviews”).

A successful ad campaign is built on thorough analytics and constant testing, as even the best-performing combos require regular updates and adaptation to Google’s changing algorithms.

A well-optimized landing page is half of a campaign’s success. Key strategies include:

• Using pre-landing pages: “prepping” the audience before redirecting them to the main site.
• A/B testing: identifying the highest-converting versions.
• Optimization for mobile devices, as over 80% of traffic comes from mobile gadgets.

Each media buyer develops their own unique combos, taking into account the region, audience, and traffic specifics.

Google Ads strictly classifies the types of content allowed for advertising:

It is impossible to set up a campaign for a custom audience with manual parameters, including user interests, habits, or intentions in Google Ads. In other niches, this tool is one of the most effective for attracting already “warmed-up” audiences. However, in the case of gambling, such an approach may be perceived as coercion or aggressive marketing, which contradicts Google's policy. Gambling is classified as a sensitive topic by Google, and ads in this category are hidden from users by default.

For the same reason, it’s impossible to create a "similar audiences" category to increase conversions. Finally, remarketing, which typically stimulates users to complete a target action, such as registering on the website, activating a bonus, or making a deposit, is also unavailable.

Gambling continues to expand globally. Today, over 70% of countries allow marketing activities in this niche (either legally or as a gray area). The list of countries suitable for driving traffic changes every year due to evolving regulations, both restricting advertising and legalizing casinos in new regions. We monitor legal changes and identify promising markets that are gaining momentum.

Here, users are aware and search for specific terms (“online casino,” Plinko). In the U.S., a new federal bill called the Model Internet Gaming Act is under consideration. If passed, by 2025, the entire country will have a ready framework and a set of rules that will significantly simplify the legalization of online gambling in individual U.S. states.

Curaçao has transitioned to a more modern and demanding certification system (LOK). Furthermore, operators with a Maltese license will now be required to comply with stricter security requirements. One of the biggest changes in European iGaming concerns Finland: the government has decided to de-monopolize the local gambling market.

As for Tier-2 regions, Latin American markets continue to grow. Broad queries work well here, and competition is lower. Brazil remains a promising region. There is growth in Peru, where gambling was legalized in 2023, and the law came into effect in 2024. Chile is also close to legalizing online casinos, although the niche is not yet regulated, although negotiations on this issue have already begun.

Cross-brand queries work great here since users do not differentiate between brands. If you have a limited budget for Tier-3 countries, choosing less competitive regions may be a prudent option. However, keep in mind that you will likely need translator services. This means localization services with native speakers, not simply machine translation with DeepL or Google Translate. The text quality is important as it affects the number of potential clients and the conversion rate.

If your budget is limited, Tier-3 countries can be a good choice to work with. Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia all deserve attention. We recommend looking closely at the Philippines, where online gambling and betting are officially regulated. The cost of traffic and competition here are indeed lower, and these regions can generate good profits.

Your GEO choice should depend on your strategy: if you primarily need solvent clients, you should choose Tier-1; if scalability is more important, it's better to focus on Tier-2 and Tier-3. Besides legislation, we recommend keeping an eye on major international sports events and creating advertising strategies around them.

Promoting gambling in Google Ads can lead to blocks since the advertising platform does not favor gambling-related content. Therefore, you will need good proxies and an anti-detect browser.

Among the tools that help with analysis and optimization we can mention:

• SemRush, Ahrefs: keyword analysis. They help assess the competitive environment and optimize the promotion strategy in search engines.
• Google Ads Editor: bulk campaign management.

An anti-detect browser is used to manage multiple accounts from a single device, bypass restrictions, and avoid blocks. Octo Browser replaces your device's real digital fingerprint with other genuine browser fingerprints, indistinguishable from those of real users with their own devices. Octo allows you to run multiple ads simultaneously and test out different advertising strategies, as if you had access to hundreds of physical devices at the same time.

Octo Browser successfully passes checks and verifications by popular checkers, such as Pixelscan, BrowserLeaks, and abrahamjuliot. This proves that Octo’s digital fingerprint spoofing is almost impossible to detect using standard methods. Of course, there is always a risk that algorithms may detect suspicious activity based on behavioral patterns. However, working with traffic becomes much easier and safer knowing that your additional accounts are significantly protected against detection.

Today, success with Google Ads requires a professional approach to account management. The main goal here is for your accounts to appear credible and trustworthy to the advertising platform. The most common combo includes a pre-farmed account (a “warmed-up” profile) and an ad account transferred to this profile.

Manual accounts farming requires experience and the right tools, such as high-quality proxies and an anti-detect browser, as incorrect set-up can lead to quick bans. However, compared to renting or buying pre-farmed accounts from an agency, manual account farming is more reliable and secure. Moreover, after proper farming, such accounts will also receive a high trust score from the platform.

In 2025, further gambling market growth can be expected, with new countries becoming available with a solvent, interested audience. This indicates that the gambling niche will remain a profitable sector in affiliate marketing.

Despite Google Ads tightening its policies for advertisers, this platform remains a powerful and important traffic source for various products, including gambling. Access to search results via Google Display Network and WebView makes it one of the largest available traffic sources. However, be prepared to face challenges, such as complex account farming, strict content requirements, and a high level of competition.