Our Rules and Guidelines: Gaming Content

Our next entry in our series on our Rules and Guidelines, explaining each item and their importance to our operations and yours, is our Gaming Content guideline. Gaming sites are defined by 7Search as any site that accepts wagers or bets from users in the United States for the purpose of gambling. This includes casino games like roulette or craps, card games like poker and blackjack, sports betting, and off track betting. 7Search has several advertisers who promote gambling related sites, but these cannot be promoted within US borders due to federal law. As a company, we have to follow this mandate, and also police our advertisers to do the same. This guideline is in place for that reason. Below is the guideline:

Gaming Content

Internet gambling websites that accept bets or wagers from customers in the U.S. may be violating provisions of U.S. law and various state laws. Users of 7Search search databases come from throughout the English-speaking world.
You, as the 7Search advertiser, are responsible for taking appropriate measures to avoid accepting bets or wagers from users located in the U.S.
Advertisers must own the website submitted and must be able to verify ownership. Affiliate programs and website redirection is not allowed.

The American government has passed legislation to address this situation. From the website http://www.gambling-law-us.com/, The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, sections 5363 and 5366, “criminalizes the acceptance of funds from bettors by operators of most online gambling Websites. The operators affected are those who, are being engaged in the business of betting or wagering, knowingly accept proceeds from credit cards, electronic fund transfers and checks in connection with the participation of a bettor in unlawful Internet gambling, which is the sponsorship of online gambling that violates any other federal or state anti-gambling law.”

Online gambling became an issue in the US in the 90’s because of the possibility of increased criminal activity, such as credit card fraud and identity theft, as well as possible increase in gambling addiction, which leads to other social problems. In a report made by Andrea Lessani in 1998, she addresses some of these issues. “While the popularity of Internet gambling is skyrocketing, ambiguity surrounds its legality.(3) Although most states allow some form of gambling activities(4), many states seek to prohibit online gambling because of the following dangers unique to online gambling: (a) the potential for fraud over the Internet; (b) children's access to gambling sites; (c) an increase in gambling addictions…” In order to address this issue, the federal government passed a series of laws dealing with the situation. The above law is the latest attempt to regulate this activity.

Despite these concerns, the business of gambling is undeniably strong, and only appears to gain strength over time. According to a 2010 article on BuzzingUp.com, “The outlook for the global casino and online gaming market to 2014, total U.S. gaming revenues will increase to $68.3 billion in 2014 from the current revenue.” 7Search has no issue with allowing advertisers to promote gambling related sites, but we must make sure that we are operating within the law. We ask that our gambling promoters target their ads to countries that allow for gaming, like the major European countries and Russia. Other regions in the world include the Asian Pacific Rim, and the Caribbean nations. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, 7Search routinely checks keywords and campaigns to determine if they are following our guidelines, and this is another item that we track.