Gambling.com Group’s boss has claimed Google is less focused on “cleaning up” search and cracking down on affiliates promoting black market casinos than ever before.
Speaking to EGR, Charles Gillespie, CEO of the affiliate behind sites like Gambling.com, Casinos.com and Bookies.com, said a surge in AI powered spam surfacing in organic search results was a contributing factor in Google displaying “garbage”.
“There’s been a huge increase in the amount of spam in the search results, especially for UK casino,” he blasted. “If you search for ‘best online casinos’, you’re going to see quite a bit of garbage in the search results – hacked websites, spammy websites, offshore stuff.
“This has always been part of the search game. None of that’s new, but what is new is the intensity of a lot of these bad actors in terms of deploying these spammy assets. I think a lot of that is AI driven.”
The search results alluded to by Gillespie often include examples of so-called ‘parasite SEO’, whereby a high-ranking domain with authority is acquired and populated with online casino affiliate links. Sometimes these links are for unlicensed operators and those targeting UK players who have self-excluded via GAMSTOP.
Examples include ExelWines, RoadPeace, ReadWrite and Patients4NHS. Previously, The Brexit Party’s website had been used for promoting not-on-GAMSTOP casinos.
Gillespie also suggested Google is less inclined to combat such practices with the same intensity it used to.
“What is also new is the fact Google seems less focused on cleaning it up than ever before.
“They’re obviously at the forefront of AI and have all sorts of extremely interesting things going on outside of online gambling search, and therefore they’re just not putting the same level of attention or talent on the anti-spam team that they did historically.
“Whereas in the past, you would see an uptick in spam, and a month later, it would be fixed and gone.”
The Gambling Commission’s executive director, Tim Miller, echoed a similar sentiment when he spoke to EGR earlier this year.
Gambling.com Group’s results also showed the company revenue from non-SEO sources was higher than that from SEO streams for the first time in its history.
Gillespie noted that while the practice of parasite SEO impacts all affiliates, smaller companies are greatly affected.
“This has been ongoing for some time and it has affected every large affiliate,” he added.
“Our SEO team collaborates with the SEO teams at other major affiliates to trade notes to figure out what’s going on. I think everybody’s been affected by this, but to varying degrees.
“Our strategy has always been big brands. We focus on Gambling.com and Casinos.com, and when these attacks are effective, and you’re not concentrated on big brands like that, it’s hard.
“We’re still making a lot of money, we’re just not making quite as much as we thought we would.”
Earlier this month, Nasdaq-listed Gambling.com Group reported a 31% rise in revenue to a new quarterly high of $46.2m for Q4 2025.
Yet when outlining 2026 guidance, the Dublin-headquartered company disclosed that revenue and EBITDA would be negatively impacted by “continued poor search dynamics”.
GAMSTOP CEO Fiona Palmer spoke to EGR last year about her disdain for platforms promoting unlicensed casinos.
EGR has contacted Google for comment.
The post Gambling.com Group CEO: Google failing to clamp down on “garbage” search results first appeared on EGR Intel.
Charles Gillespie suggests the tech behemoth’s priorities lie elsewhere despite a “huge increase” in spam plaguing search, particularly for keywords like ‘UK casino’
The post Gambling.com Group CEO: Google failing to clamp down on “garbage” search results first appeared on EGR Intel.