Spammers Take over Google Maps to Pump Illegal Casinos

The latest easy target for gambling spammers is Google Maps – where casino spammers are actively using a combination of fake reviews and fake business listings to spam google maps – hijacking traffic from legitimate destinations to direct consumers towards illegal offshore internet casinos.

Researchers have discovered that casino marketers are effectively “gaming” search engine results on Google for profit – which can be seen when performing searches for land-based casino properties in the US in a number of states (Alaska, Nevada, Maine, Georgia, Utah) – including states where online gambling is actually illegal.

For a query like “Alaska Casinos”, one might reasonably expect to see only land-based, brick-and-mortar casinos at the top of Google’s Map search results – especially due to the company’s apparent focus on surfacing trustworthy sites for queries related to finance or health (“your money or your life” or YMYL).

Instead the top listings are FAKE.

Online gambling is not legal or regulated in the state of Alaska (in fact gambling on out-of-state or international casinos is illegal, even though some offshore US-facing gambling operators accept Alaska-based gamblers).

The expanded listings feature unmasked casino affiliate links, no business address & fake reviews. Also note the absence of a physical business location and the presence of a naked affiliate tracker link which leads to an online casino and sportsbook.

The spammers even took the time to gather hundreds of fake reviews in order to boost their credibility and chances of (spam) success.

Google has claimed in the past that < 1% of all the content that is viewed on Maps was fraudulent or abusive.