Taking a U-Turn from its stance on anti-gambling policy, Google Play is set to allow real money gambling apps in 15 more countries.
The tech giant is set to permit the gambling apps in countries of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United States, starting March 1.
As of now, the gambling apps are only permitted in UK, Ireland and France.
This is a stern change in its policy against gambling, which had started a feud between Indian payment app Paytm and Google Play. The dispute had started on Paytm offering cash backs to customers, which Google believed to be gambling.
Google’s real-money policy encompasses online casino, sports betting, lotteries and the games that are legal according to laws of various countries.
As per Calvinayre.com, Google said, it will permit ‘Gamified Loyalty Programs’ that “reward users with real world prizes or monetary equivalent,” provided the benefits, perks or rewards are “clearly supplementary and subordinate to any qualifying monetary transaction within the app.”
Last year, the tech giant had also floated a new user policy, which allowed the users to restrict the gambling related ads over Google search engine and YouTube.