Meta Changes Gambling Advertising Rules After Heavy Criticism

Meta has changed its rules regarding the advertising of gambling products. This comes after increased criticism. So what has changed?

The parent company of Instagram and owner of Facebook, Meta, has recently updated its rules regarding the advertising of gambling content. Primarily, this is done through the use of its Meta Business Suite. It involves a raft of changes, such as age verification processes and increased control for operators and affiliate marketers.

A New Approach to Gambling Advertising on Social Media

The online casino industry is huge and is projected to be worth around US$226.90 billion by the end of the year. Over the past ten years, it has grown by improving various factors, such as transparency and security. Yet, its game quality has been one major factor, with the sector now having its own franchises like the Sweet Bonanza casino game. A slot title, it takes elements from popular mobile games like Candy Crush, blending them into a hybrid version with the added bonus of being able to win cash prizes. It also has advanced features like cascading reels, making it more akin to a video game. It is not alone, either, with other titles like Gate of Olympus also bringing in new players.

Other changes have involved the way online casinos have been marketed, and social media has been a defining factor. Yet this has often come with criticism, and as of July, new changes will impact all gambling promotions on Meta. This covers sports betting, online casinos, poker, lotteries, raffles and prize money games like bingo.

Any businesses wanting to advertise must seek permission through the Permissions and Verifications portal. Meta’s team will manually review any ads and check for a range of necessary documentation. If they are not happy with the result, more details may be asked for. Anyone wanting to use the service must provide the following in English –

• Identification of their position in the company
• Legal company name and pictures of the website
• Licenses issued by regulatory bodies
• List of associated ad accounts
• A list of territories where the ads will be shown

Changes to Influencer Marketing

This also impacts influencer and affiliate marketers, and they can no longer just advertise products and services related to gambling companies. Instead, they must also register as affiliates and seek approval before posting. Influencers must also comply with local laws in the place where they are advertising.

While Meta is providing a framework, it has made it clear they take no responsibility for this, and it is up to the influencer to check the laws in the territory they are advertising. They will not be responsible for legal compliance, with the onus on advertisers to make sure they operate legally.

What makes it easier for influencers is that once their services have been approved for use in a jurisdiction, they can then work on others without further checks. This means they then have to check local laws before expanding.

A loophole has been noticed here and criticised by many. If a gambling operator goes through the full approval process and publishes an ad, they can tag influencers and other parties who are not approved. This can be done without any repercussions to either, even if the second party is not registered. Yet, should the influencer publish the ad, they must go through the full verification process.

Social Casino Rules

Social casinos are games that are traditionally gambling-focused, like table games and slots, that do not use real money. As long as they continue to omit real money rewards, they can advertise freely on Facebook and Instagram. However, they must display whether the game uses in-app purchases and must include documentation that success does not correlate to real-world gambling. Any language that may be deemed misleading regarding in-game currencies must also be avoided.

Even social casinos have not escaped the zero-tolerance approach to targeting minors. While they’re still quite unrestricted, they must explicitly exclude minors from their ad campaigns. This shows how seriously Meta is now taking advertising to underage groups, something they have been criticised for before.

Previous Criticism of Meta

A lot of the criticism causing these changes stems from a report titled “Profiling by Proxy: How Meta’s Data-Driven Ads Fuel Discrimination.” It was compiled by a UK Digital Rights Group known as The Open Rights Group. The problem was that Meta categorised public health advertising as political content. This means it can be subject to heightened transparency rules. However, gambling content falls under a different category and thus has not traditionally been subject to this. The report argued that more restrictions were placed on safer gambling ads than on those of actual gambling products.

There were also issues in the report surrounding third-party privacy, which have not been addressed in these recent changes. This allows people’s data to be used to target them specifically based on traits and behaviours. A recent court case saw a major gambling operator in the UK taken to court on charges related to this, and the defendant won.

There is no doubt that these rules will change again. There are still many areas not covered, such as the aforementioned privacy and loopholes. While ads may become less frequent on Meta, they’re still there and are a lucrative earnings stream the company will not want to lose. 

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