Unregulated online casinos use black hat SEO tactics—methods that violate Google’s rules—to bury journalism about their harmful gambling platforms that often target underage individuals.
These search engine tactics have been more effective recently as Google shifts focus from traditional search to AI.
In recent weeks, GamblingHarm.org has been hit by a massive black hat SEO attack. The image below shows the number of unique websites linking to this website. We’ve seen a recent surge, mostly from spam or defunct domains that appear to have been hijacked by people involved in unregulated online casinos.
Sweepstakes Casino Gambling SEO
Unable to advertise traditionally, unregulated online gambling platforms rely on search engines like Google and unscrupulous affiliate marketing firms. Sweepstakes casinos, a form of illegal and unregulated online gambling, use a dual currency model to circumvent state gambling laws. At least 11 states have passed laws and/or issued cease-and-desist letters against these harmful products.
In 2025, California passed the nation’s strictest anti-sweepstakes casino law to protect its residents. GamblingHarm.org reported on the new law, which went into effect at the start of this year.
We’ve received hundreds of spam SEO backlinks designed to trick Google into seeing our gambling journalism as untrustworthy. This can result in our sweepstakes casino journalism disappearing from Google search.
Google can generally detect spam backlinks, but we’ve already seen an impact. Our California sweepstakes article has lost visibility and traffic, which impacts the entire website. GamblingHarm.org has also reported on numerous individual sweepstakes casinos accused by states of predatory business practices.
How You Can Help GamblingHarm.org
GamblingHarm.org is self-funded and receives small, generous donations from readers.
To counter spam backlinks, the website needs more high-quality backlinks from legitimate websites, as these signal to Google that our content is trustworthy and important, helping to offset the negative impact of spam links.
We’ve received many amazing citations over recent months, including from The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Dallas Morning News, The Guardian, and more.
However, the ongoing spam attack is harming GamblingHarm.org. If you have the opportunity to link to GamblingHarm.org from a website you’re involved in, please consider doing so. It would help tremendously.
The more citations GamblingHarm.org receives, the better Google can disregard SEO spam backlinks meant to suppress our gambling journalism. The mission is to inform consumers and people vulnerable to addiction.
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