Key Points
- The ASA upheld a complaint against Optival Ltd after a betting ad appeared following a search for “self-exclusion bookies”…big surprise, right?
- Optival claimed they used negative keyword lists, but the ASA reckoned they just weren’t strong enough.
- Back in 2019 Casumo and in September last year Smart Gravity got hit with the same complaint, and got the same ruling.
Someone searches Google for “self-exclusion bookies” because they want to get their betting habits under control. Instead, the first result is a list of the “Top 15 Betting Sites UK”, nice timing, huh. According to the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), this happened on 10th August 2026.
Optival Ltd, which runs bestbookiesandbettingsites.co.uk, now faces a ruling they can’t dispute, despite saying they’d blocked searches of that kind. The case raises a pretty obvious question: how can an advertiser block a search term and still manage to show a gambling ad to someone trying to cut back on betting?
ASA Knocks Back Optival Over Its Bonus Ad on Self-Exclusion Search
The ad was all about promoting those “Exclusive First Bet Bonus” offers and welcome deals from the top UK bookmakers. It also slung around some “best welcome offers” for 2025, even though the ad showed up in August 2026.
Optival is an affiliate operator, sending punters off to bookmakers rather than taking bets themselves. However, the ASA classed the ad as a promotion of online gambling and reckoned the search term was a pretty strong indication the person searching was trying to reduce or cut out betting altogether, and therefore might be vulnerable.
Optival tried to spin it to the ASA, saying they hadn’t deliberately targeted the search term. Their search term reports also showed no direct match. They told the ASA they maintained negative keyword lists to stop ads showing up for selected searches, lists that included self-exclusion, GamStop and so on.
Optival basically blamed the ad platform for getting it wrong and said the incident was a one-off. They also promised to beef up their exclusion criteria to stop this kind of thing happening in the future.
But the ASA reckoned Optival’s controls weren’t up to scratch when the ad appeared, and that there was a good chance that vulnerable people saw it. Which is a breach of rule 1.3 of the CAP Code (Edition 12), the bit about social responsibility in advertising.
The ASA sent Optival a clear message: show that ad again after a search for “self-exclusion bookies” and you’ll be in for a world of trouble. And they’re also told to keep a closer eye on how they’re targeting gambling search ads.
The ruling says Optival didn’t try to target people looking for help, but its status as an affiliate doesn’t get it off scot-free. Advertisers who promote gaming products need to be super careful not to target vulnerable people.
Casumo and Smart Gravity Encountered the Same Problem
In 2019, a Casumo bonus ad was shown to somebody who searched on the Internet “how to unsubscribe from all gambling”. Casumo claimed that it had the technology to block searches of that kind. However, Casumo did not include the word “unsubscribe” in the list because it believed that this word referred to mailing lists. Furthermore, Casumo insisted that it could not predict each variant of a Google search.
Nevertheless, ASA found this argumentation unacceptable, and stated that the ad “had not been responsibly targeted”. One can note the similarity between the cases of Optival and Casumo. Both companies had the system of blocking; however, the ad of both appeared after the search of “stopping gambling”. Both companies indicated restrictions on matching the search queries.
Smart Gravity experienced a similar decision in September 2026. This firm owns the website top10onlinecasinoreviews.co.uk, and its ad was displayed after a search of “help with gambling”.
Smart Gravity claimed that it had no commercial interests to address vulnerable groups. Despite this explanation, ASA stated that Smart Gravity’s keyword list and controls of the targeting “had not provided a sufficiently robust safeguard”. ASA used the same regulation, namely rule 1.3 of the CAP Code. It also decided that the ad should not be displayed after a search for “help with gambling”.
Special Attention to the Self-Exclusion Search
According to the statistics of the first half of 2026, the number of registrations increased by 16% as compared to the previous year. The record-high registration, 12,236 sign-ups, occurred in May.
Registrations of people under 25 years old increased by 26%, and this age category currently accounts for almost one third of people registering in self-exclusions. By the end of 2025, there were more than 562,000 active exclusions via Gamstop Online.
One can also note the situation concerning the self-exclusion requirement in the broader regulatory context. Thus, in August, the Gambling Commission fined Holland Park Leisure £150,000 for not using a mandatory self-exclusion scheme in Great Britain.
It is important to note that the company had already received a warning and failed to undertake any remedial actions. Moreover, Holland Park gave misleading information during the Commission’s enquiries. John Pierce, the Commission’s enforcement director, said: “These are not optional requirements.”
Increased Use of AI by ASA to Monitor Paid Gambling Ads
In July 2026, the ASA revealed that it had been using AI to review in excess of 10,000 paid advertisements every month from gambling operators licensed in the UK. At that stage in 2026, it had identified 17 gambling advertisements in relation to which action had been taken.
The ASA has not provided any information as to whether the above 17 advertisements have any connection with affiliates and/or searches for self-exclusion.
Analysis: Keyword List Does Not Cope with Ad Restrictions
The situation seems obvious: two affiliates received identical decisions within two months, but none of them can refer to the use of a negative keyword list as a proper defence. ASA deals with the way users see ads, not with the controls used by advertisers.
According to Google, there is one shortcoming of using a negative keyword list – close variants will not be automatically blocked. There is no information regarding the settings used by Optival in this particular case, so we will not discuss them at all.
Using automated matching as an excuse may sound technologically savvy, but advertisers are the ones who make settings and are liable for the outcomes.
There is also one aspect of the outcome that may interest our readers – there do not seem to be any significant consequences for a company that receives commissions as a result of referrals. Optival is required to stop showing ads based on one keyword and target its gambling ads properly. There is no fine. It seems that the decision serves more as a warning.
Operators possess the license and face reputation risks, therefore they have the best chances to influence affiliates.
ASA dealt with affiliate advertising in 2017, when Ladbrokes, 888, Sky Vegas and Casumo were held accountable for ads that, according to them, were never approved. In 2017 Clive Hawkswood, CEO of the Remote Gambling Association, said that affiliates should expect “operators reconsidering their relationships”.
The description of that period provided by Osborne Clarke tells us how operators reacted to those decisions. Sky Bet terminated its affiliate programme in the UK, and Paddy Power Betfair introduced a “one strike” policy.
We expect operators to start requiring search affiliates to prove the effectiveness of their keyword filters. This is our forecast and does not have anything in common with any official industry statement.
Periodic checks of search term reports, testing of close keyword variants and keeping dated logs of each verification attempt would be appropriate first steps. These are our recommendations, not some kind of requirements set by the ASA.
Creation of a keyword block list is relatively simple. What is hard is ensuring that it blocks the ads properly.
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