GamStop: Trouble with Online Casino Sites

GamStop is a clever help for gamblers in the UK when they want to take a break from gambling. It's just stupid when problem gamblers are shown bonus offers from online casinos instead of the exclusion list. In the worst case, this could lead to the players refraining from the idea of exclusion and instead challenging their luck at the next casino again after all. Unsurprisingly, the ads are therefore causing enormous criticism among player protectors.

Curious: Bonus Offers when Searching for GamStop

GamStop is an enormously important institution for the gambling industry and its players. 

Behind this name is the country's national self-exclusion system. 

Players who want to be excluded from gambling offers can register here in the system. 

Subsequently, players can no longer access gambling offers if the companies or providers participate in the GamStop program. 

This is true for the major companies in the UK. 

Currently, however, there is a completely different problem. 

As one user reported on Twitter, players searching for the self-exclusion system would be shown bonus offers for online casinos. 

And that is with providers that are precisely not part of the GamStop program.

The user tweeted that the following text was displayed as the top result in the search:

“Not on GamStop Popular Sites – Get 300 Percent Bonus”. 

Translated, this explicitly advertises bonus offers of up to 300 percent that players can secure at casinos without participating in the GamStop program. 

For consumer advocates, this is critical in two respects. 

On the one hand, because players are shown bonus offers at all. 

Secondly, because these could then also be used despite an entry in the GamStop database.

Problem gamblers could thus be tempted to place further bets.

Is Search Engine Giant Google to Blame?

Since the advertisements are ads on Google, criticism of the search engine giant was of course immediately voiced in the UK. 

Thus, this algorithm would still promote ads that provide gambling offers. 

In addition to that, Google was accused of even being able to target some gambling companies specifically to the problem gamblers with their advertising messages.

Simply by circumventing the protection software. 

Also critically regarded is the fact that some of the ads were still present after the British media drew the Internet giant's attention to them. 

Google itself already reacted to the accusations and explained that all accounts on the AdWords platform were blocked and thus no further advertising measures would be possible.

Apparently, even politicians do not seem convinced to blame Google alone. 

Thus, Carolyn Harris, as a member of parliament for the Labour Party, stated that Google was by no means to blame.

That the company itself had become a victim of the gambling companies' machinations.