“They pretend to follow the rules, but meanwhile, they earn billions.” While dozens of countries ban gambling advertisements, Meta simply keeps selling them. In India, Malaysia, and the Philippines, among others, Facebook and Instagram are running at full speed in an illegal advertising circuit.
Research shows that Meta allows gambling advertisements in at least 13 countries where they are prohibited by both its own rules and local laws. Often, they disappear after a few hours. But by then, the damage is already done.
India banned online gambling. Yet the ads keep coming
Between 2021 and 2024, online gambling grew rapidly in India. Cheap mobile data and affordable smartphones made it accessible to millions of people. But the government intervened: since August 2024, online gambling – and the advertising for it – has been completely banned.
Nevertheless, the platform Rest of World found at least 140 active gambling ads in India last December, all on Facebook. They led to apps or sites where users could bet on card games, slot machines, and sports betting. Complete with bank linkages, promises of cashback, and “loss recovery.”
The same ads also appeared in countries like Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia. All countries where such advertising is legally prohibited.
Ads run for hours, disappear, and come back
The modus operandi is always the same. Pages post dozens of ads at once, let them run for six to eight hours, and then take them down again. This makes it difficult for regulators to intervene in time. But the platforms themselves – like Meta – could solve that problem.
According to Ronald Gustilo of Digital Pinoys, a digital watchdog in the Philippines, Meta hardly does so.
“We sent them data on 300 gambling sites active on Facebook. They removed six.”
More than 60 percent of online gambling activities in the Philippines are illegal, according to the national regulator PAGCOR. And according to Gustilo, the vast majority of ads on social media come from those illegal providers.
Meta places responsibility on the advertiser
In its own guidelines, Meta states that advertisers must comply with local laws. In 18 countries, gambling advertising is officially banned on their platforms. Yet ads were found in at least 13 of those countries, according to the analysis by Rest of World.
Meta did not respond to questions from journalists, nor to removal requests from governments. In Malaysia, the government asked for the removal of over 120,000 gambling ads. Many of them remained visible.
Minister of Communications Fahmi Fadzil is harsh in his judgment:
“If Meta knows these ads are illegal, why don’t they block the payment cards used for them? They refuse to cooperate in the fight against cybercrime.”
The role of Facebook pages is suspicious
The gambling ads are often placed via pages with unclear names, fake addresses, and administrators scattered across Southeast Asia. Some pages claim to be from the US, but their profile shows the administrators are located in the Philippines or Thailand, for example.
Often, these are pages that do not stand out: “Kitchen Helpers & Tools,” for example. That page ran 130 gambling ads in November for the Thai Nex855. A gambling site promoting live casinos and slots in a country where online gambling is prohibited.
In Malaysia too, where gambling has been banned since 1953, more than 250 gambling ads appeared in December for the app MYB77. The ads ran briefly, but the pages that posted them still exist.
Ads are barely checked
The big problem: in most countries, gambling ads do not fall under the category of “political advertisements.” As a result, fewer transparency rules apply. So you often cannot see who is behind it, how much money was spent on it, or who the target audience is.
According to a recent Reuters report, Meta earns at least 10 percent of its global revenue, over 16 billion dollars, from fraudulent advertisements. Illegal gambling ads fall into this category.
Digital watchdogs want this to change. And fast.