Google Ads will expand its gambling and games certification eligibility checks on September 14, 2026, applying the policy-health standard it introduced for online gambling advertisers in March to all categories covered by its gambling and games policy.
The official Google Ads policy page says the expanded requirement applies to accounts seeking to advertise in any gambling and games category. Those categories include online gambling and online gambling-promoting content, offline gambling, online non-casino games and social casino games.
Manager accounts with repeated online gambling certificate revocations, or accounts under their management that are repeatedly flagged for gambling policy violations while using a certificate, can lose eligibility to apply for new online gambling certificates and may have existing certifications revoked.
Google also restated domain rules for certification. Websites hosted on free subdomains are ineligible, the advertising domain must be directly owned and controlled by the business, and domains unrelated to gambling are ineligible for certification.