21 September 2026
Online gambling providers are increasingly using AI and social media to target potential customers and offer personalised experiences. The Australian Gambling Regulator ACMA detailed how AI is reshaping everything from personalized promotions to detecting fraud in April 2024.
According to the regulator's report, AI is now being leveraged to create bespoke promotions, tweak app interfaces to each user, provide automated customer support, even predict betting trends. The same report said that AI is also being used to create personalized promotional content and design new product features based on individual gambling behaviour.
While AI does the profiling and targeting, social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and X have taken over much of the creative and delivery work. Operator marketing strategies are eschewing simple paid ads in favour of organic posts on social media made to spread quickly and create an "authentic" buzz.
The ACMA report details this shift towards organic engagement through community-led marketing on social media. Operators are prioritising content like game footage shared by players, "winner of the day" clips, regular polls and Q&A sessions with players, and live streams of online games. Shying away from direct marketing, this slowing-release strategy aims to dab gambling into the daily content stream so much that it breaks through to real users.
This organic, community-led approach is all about establishing an affinity between the operator and the community. That's why you're seeing more unscripted, "native" video content alongside things like flashy marketing pushes. Giving existing customers, even non-active ones, that "homestay feel" increases the likelihood they'll return. Because the social media teams behind these tactics can group and restrict promotion content to age-appropriate forums, they're also able to launch these kinds of promotional campaigns while following social media platforms' rules about age-restricted gambling content.
And the largest of those platforms, Meta, has a set of recent rules online casinos and UKGC-licensed gaming firms must ensure they're following. In 2023, Meta set up a new process for gambling promoters on Facebook to receive authorization. Now each ad, unlike the old days, has a ''gambling'' tag in its access settings, ensuring only the 18+ crowd see the ad. This is especially important for TikTok too, where gambling-themed content on that platform is picked up by millions of underage users.
Another element of Meta's new standards is that all third-party gambling content must have express written consent from the online casino to be shared. A casino can't hire an online promoter without registering them as an affiliate with Meta, giving consent by messaging Meta what is permissible content from that creator. Again, this improves age-restricted marketing.
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The rush to push social media content that is patronizing or staking-obsessed is slowed a little by having each casino review what's being posted. It keeps casinos out of compliance trouble by not letting creators push outside what's permissible. And a casino affiliate writing "diamond hands forever" in the comments after a big win may not get picked up by an under-18 and modelled.
In social media marketing, the debate often boils down to efficiency. And the Australian data showed a big up-tick from 2022, noting that organic social media helped increase user acquisition by 20%. This organic touch reached players where they were already hanging out digitally, something an ad could never do.
But the biggest reach is still through the native app itself. Push Notifications have emerged as the bedrock of digital user engagement in 2024, enabling gambling operators to alert users about promotions, remind them to check out their upcoming scratch games or re-card their staking guesses, and keep players recharged. Push notifications are the most cost-effective way to reach a mass audience through smartphones, so the web content is actually built for mobile engagement, not mobile/dunfication.
In addition to mobile-first approaches, iGaming trend coverage also identifies AR/VR, app-based live streaming, and social content as forces redefining the player experience, making gambling more social and accessible on all devices. External technology can work in these apps too - with augmented reality elements helping people see the fruits of their winnings or digital collectibles that they can show off in their photos to others. Mobile banking and cryptocurrencies can speed up the process of unlocking big winnings or notifying winners to claim their stakes.
And yet, for all this technological capability, on the compliance front, gambling promotion must result in increased awareness of the risks and the importance of safe play. Meta's new age restrictions, for example, in addition to providing the greater longevity of affiliates, have the important social value of keeping underage minds from early exposure. In a society where problem gambling is more of a known factor, that's important.
The Australian Gambling Regulator acknowledges that the increase in marketing flexibility can push online casinos to come up with creative ways to engage players. While not an easy goal to hit, platforms gaining more influence over gambling content is a healthy trend if it means the greater social and regulatory good is being safeguarded.