Antigua and Barbuda Added To White List

Following its appeal against an earlier rejection in January 2008 the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda has been officially added to the advertising “white list” it was announced today by Andy Burnham the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

This will now allow remote gambling services based in Antigua to advertise services to UK based residents from November 20th 2008, it will hold the same status as if it were a member of the EEA (European Economic Area) putting on equal footing as larger states such as Gibraltar and Malta

Google to reintroduce gambling ads

The search engine giant Google has decided to amend its policy on gambling adverts and will recede its previous global ban on gambling advertising and will allow companies to target the United Kingdom. The advertisements will be reintroduced to Google’s UK website (except Northern Ireland) from today.

Google will start to accept adverts from UK companies that are registered with the Gambling Commission and non UK-based advertisers in the 30 countries that make up the European Economic Area.  Gambling companies in the EEA can target ads at Google users in Great Britain provided they hold a licence in the country where they are based. By including the EEA this will allow a large number of the off shore operators such as the Gibraltar based 888.com to advertise.

James Cashmore from Google said “Over the last few months we’ve been reviewing our gambling advertising policy in Great Britain to ensure it is as consistent as possible with local business practices. Following the review we’ve decided to amend our policy to allow text ads to appear against search queries related to gambling in Great Britain”. These adverts will be classified as “non-family safe” which means they will not appear if the “Safe Search Filter” is switched on.