Back in late June Google launched their Google Ads beta update for their New Jersey advertisement platform. This new version will allow licensed New Jersey sportsbooks to use Google’s powerful service, which is big for the state’s online gaming industry. Not only is this a very big deal for New Jersey gaming, but for online gambling as a whole.
Google has been very careful when it comes to online gambling, as they used to only use their ad space for programs for state lotteries. With the new update the sportsbooks will be able to buy digital ad space in New Jersey and other markets may follow soon after.
Yaniv Sherman, who is an executive at 888, laid out the new changes to the company investors recently stating, “It’s another development, and for us, it means this is good news. We are online animals. We are online DNA. This creates a competitive edge, and it broadens the marketing pie for us to choose from.”
The lowdown on Google Ads
The platform for Google Ads is one that allows them to “display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content, and generate mobile application installs within the Google ad network.”
Operators can also make bids on ad space over the Internet in real time with the Google Ad Exchange. Then Google can feed the advertisements to, literally, millions of websites changing them to the content of the webpage as well as the browsing habits of the reader. Also, the ads will who next to search results and that will give a way to reach more people in a way that should be much more cost-effective.
Google shows the benefits
If you use a wider net to bring in customers, the more you may get from parts of the Internet that has more traffic. This was not previously available from Google, but with the update that is not the case any longer. Google brags that their ads reach in excess of 90% of the Internet users in the world, but, until recently, online gaming sites, which are state regulated, have not been able to use the Google Ads platform.
One issue that has arisen making it harder in markets that are regulated, especially ones that are newly regulated, is making the public aware about gambling online and if it legal or not in certain markets. There are possible customers that, basically, are not aware that online gambling is legal in states where the industry is regulated.
There is an advantage for land-based casinos over their online counterparts in that they are on real land that they own, and they can use that in terms of advertising. Obviously, operators online do not have true real estate and they were shunned from using ad space on the biggest marketplace, which is the Internet. Arguably, Google Ads is the biggest and most powerful tool for getting to market that are not available to the usual channels for advertising.
Ads limited to New Jersey sportsbooks
Even though change is happening there are still significant restrictions on gambling ads by Google. The advertisers have to be licensed from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. The operators can only have ads that have to deal with sports betting in New Jersey and ads for online poker and casinos are currently not allowed by Google. Google’s network websites that choose not to show gambling ads will have that option. There are also terms of service that will have restrictions in place in terms of responsible gaming and no restrictions will be for operators that are licensed and new.
The terms of service are:
• Giving notice on a website that users that are not 21 years old will not be able to gamble on the site.
• Giving a warning to possible end users that underage gambling is a crime.
• Requiring users to give proof that they are of legal age to gamble.
• The reviewing of systems for age verification on a regular basis.
• Making sure that the staff of the gambling websites are trained in the proper manner in order to avoid underage gambling on the site.