Google AdWords now bans advertising of free gaming sites and more

I noticed this story on the eConsultancy blog today but I'm not sure how widely it has been reported.

Here is the new gambling-related content policy with the additions highlighted in bold:

Advertising is not permitted for online casinos, sports books, bingo and affiliates with the primary purpose of driving traffic to online gambling sites. This includes, but is not limited to, the promotion of online casinos and gambling activities, sports books, lotteries, bingo, poker, sites that provide tips, odds and handicapping, software facilitating online casinos and gambling, gambling tutoring online, gambling related eBooks, sites where the primary purpose is 'play for fun' gambling, or casino games of skill, and affiliates with the primary purpose of driving traffic to online gambling sites.

Basically Google has now widened its ban on advertising gambling websites using AdWords. Up until now they wouldn't let you advertise a gambling site where visitors can go and gamble with real money. But there was a "loophole" whereby you could send visitors to a "free" gaming site where potential players could practice without having to create an account and deposit money. Some were dubbed as "learning" sites where you could learn to play poker for instance. The idea being that in time, after they had practiced and gained confidence in the game they would become a real player, depositing and playing with cash. There was another workaround whereby affiliates would simply advertise something like "Free bingo cards" or "Free bingo tips" sending visitors to a landing page with nothing much more than an email subscription form. The visitor then signs up and gets marketed to death with bingo offers. Both of these ideas were workarounds which worked well for affiliates. But it seems that under the new rules even free play sites and tips sites will be outlawed. Or will they? Here's a screenshot taken at 12.58pm today June 7th 2007.  As you can see all of the ads are either advertising free bingo sites or newsletters. Maybe its just taking a while for this new policy to filter down? What I'm listening to right now: D’Influence- "Hypnotize"