A controversial internet advertising campaign by 888.com, one of the world’s biggest online casino brands, has vanished from Google’s search pages.

The campaign — which allegedly broke Google’s advertising rules — was running on searches for gambling-related keywords on the search engines UK’s pages.

The ad read: “888 Poker/ New Customers Double Your First Deposit Upto £100 – Exclusive Here”. Clicking the link to www.888-uk.com took curious surfers DIRECTLY to the 888.com web site, after a short delay.

Script Trickery

But the terms and conditions of the AdWords marketing scheme say: “Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain online gambling, gaming and related content.”

The campaign — which has been running for at least a week — was absent from Google’s search results this morning.

According to source code shown to Casino Update, 888.com were apparently getting round the restriction by using script-based redirection — again banned under Google rules. Users without JavaScript were sent to a web page about the Venetian Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. AdWords campaigns for geographical casinos ARE permitted by Google.

Costly Clicks

Many online casino companies have attempted to run AdWords campaigns with varying success. Last week there were reports that bet365.com was running as many as EIGHT separate simultaneous campaigns which were appearing with identical wording stacked one on top of another.

Google AdWords is today’s most successful “Pay-Per-Click” campaign. Advertisers bid for the best placed ads, but only pay when someone clicks the link through to their site. It is believed that 888.com were paying in excess of £6 every time their links were clicked.