UK Gambling Commission suggests Meta could be turning a ‘blind eye’ to illegal gambling ads

The executive director of the UK-based Gambling Commission has warned of concerns about the illegal market, stating that people who have visited Meta platforms “will more than likely have seen ads appearing in your feed for illegal online casinos.”

Tim Miller goes on to suggest, during his speech at ICE Barcelona, that many of those aimed at users in Great Britain are for the so called ‘not on gamstop’ sites.

He explains how these are “targeted at consumers that have taken the often difficult step to self-exclude from online gambling through the use of GamStop, Britain’s multi-operator self exclusion scheme.”

Again, publicly called out by name, Miller says companies like Meta will say they don’t tolerate the advertising of illegal sites and will remove them if they are notified about them. But, he says that approach suggests they don’t know about those ads unless alerted, which he alleges is to be false.

“Meta has a searchable ad library where you can find all current ads that meet searched key words. You or I can conduct such a search for ‘not on gam stop’ sites and see for ourselves how many are currently paying Meta to advertise on their platforms. It’s effectively a window into criminality. If we can find them then so can Meta: they simply choose not to look.”

‘Whose side are you on?’ Tim Miller of the Gambling Commissions asks

The executive director says they have engaged with the company on this, but have gotten very limited progress aside from a few warm words.

“Their suggestion was that we should deploy AI tools ourselves to monitor and find these ads and then report them.

“I would be very surprised if Meta, as one of the world’s largest tech companies is incapable of proactively using their own keyword facility to prevent the advertising of illegal gambling. It could leave you with the impression they are quite happy to turn a blind eye and continue taking money from criminals and scammers until someone shouts about it.”

While the speech continued, he asked Meta ‘whose side are you on?’ as he suggests its either the consumer and users on the platforms or the “criminals and con artists who are using your platforms to prey on vulnerable people…”

Featured Image: Canva / Meta

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