Trust has become a technical issue
The rules of trust have changed. Visual sophistication and compliant content are no longer enough. It’s the behind-the-scenes website architecture that determines whether an ad gets seen. Lazarov points out that Google’s algorithm now evaluates a site’s trustworthiness from a technical architecture perspective rather than a page interface.

“If you launch a basic HTML page today, you will almost certainly be blocked,” he warns. “You’re trying to meet an invisible, ever-changing set of expectations set by Google’s machine learning system.”

Even fully licensed landing pages are marked as “hacked sites” by Google, with no avenues for appeal. Google rejects or ignores certification applications and support requests en masse.

“We put in a huge effort,” he explains. “It took almost two weeks of testing, budget, and deep analysis of Google’s new trust system.”

Regulation doesn’t help
If agencies are still counting on rescue from industry organizations or gaming regulators, they may have to wait a long time.

“Unfortunately, this is beyond their reach,” Lazarov says. “These organizations can’t and don’t have the energy to help.”

The problem, he explains, is not policy, but platform logic. The crackdown was not motivated by anti-gambling intent, but rather a response to violations by affiliates and the rise of AI-driven trust management systems.

“It’s a directly related chain reaction,” he added. “Because of the frequent violations by affiliates, what we are seeing now is a rigorous update driven by a new generation of AI and large language models, with much higher technical standards for checking new content than before.”

Opportunities in desperation
The market vacuum left behind has caused competition to drop sharply. “About 90% of countries have almost no competition,” Lazarov said. This has triggered a buying frenzy among advertisers.

“Demand for traffic from advertisers has increased tenfold. Clients who previously avoided certain countries’ traffic pools now want to buy them without hesitation.”

The survivors are not just surviving, many are thriving. “Those who have mastered the right strategy are now making ten times more than they were a few months ago,” Lazarov revealed.

This has also upended the relationship between affiliates and operators. Global brands that once dominated have also lowered their profile.