Google posted a notice on October 5, 2026, stating that Google Ads will update its Gambling and games policy on October 21, 2026, to allow online lottery advertisements in Colombia from entities authorized by the Consejo Nacional de Juegos de Suerte y Azar (CNJSA), the national council for games of luck and chance.

In Short

Google is letting lottery companies in Colombia buy ads for online lottery tickets starting October 21, something its rules did not allow before. Only lotteries that Colombia's national gambling council has authorized can do it, and they still have to apply to Google for a certificate first. If you run lottery ads in Colombia, the paperwork now involves two gatekeepers, one in Colombia and one at Google.

What the notice says

The notice sits in the change log of Google's Advertising Policies Help Center under the title "Update to Gambling and Games Policy: Colombia (October 2026)". It is short. Beyond the opening sentence, it consists of a two-row table, a single line telling advertisers they must apply for certification, and a statement that "the Gambling and games policy page will be updated when the policy goes into effect on October 21, 2026." The page carries the line "(Posted on October 5, 2026)", which gives operators 16 days between publication and the effective date.

According to Google, the change will "allow online lottery advertisements in Colombia by entities authorized by Consejo Nacional de Juegos de Suerte y Azar (CNJSA)."

The table splits Colombian gambling advertising into two categories. The first, online gambling, lists eight products: slot or chance machines, roulette, black jack, baccarat, bingo, poker, sports betting and lotteries. The second category, online gambling-promoting content, carries no product list.

Two requirements in one cell

The right-hand column of the table, headed "Country-specific certification requirement", is where the substance lies. For online gambling, it contains two sentences. The first reads: "Operator must be registered with the Colijuegos and have a valid license." The second reads: "Lottery operators must provide their authorization from Consejo Nacional de Juegos de Suerte y Azar (CNJSA)." A "Learn how to apply" link follows. For online gambling-promoting content, only the first sentence appears.

The live version of the Gambling and games policy, as published on Google's help center on October 11, 2026, lists seven products for Colombia's online gambling row. Lotteries are not among them, and the requirement column carries only the registration and licence sentence. The October 21 update therefore adds one product to the list and one sentence to the requirements.

That comparison clarifies what is new. Slot machines, roulette, black jack, baccarat, bingo, poker and sports betting were already eligible for certified advertisers in Colombia before this notice. Lotteries were not. Google's general policy text explains the consequence of that omission: "Online gambling of any type not listed under 'Online gambling' for a particular country is not eligible for certification and may not be advertised." The same policy names "online lottery ticket or online scratch card purchase" among its examples of online gambling promotion.

An open question on licensing

The notice does not say whether lottery operators must satisfy both sentences in the cell or only the second. Read literally, the online gambling row applies the registration requirement to every operator in that row, lotteries included, and then adds the CNJSA authorization as an extra condition for lottery operators. Read another way, the CNJSA sentence describes the route specific to lotteries, separate from the licensing route used by casino and betting operators.

The difference matters in practice. A short summary at the top of the page, labelled "Summarized by Google AI" and marked as beta, says that "all lottery operators must provide their specific authorization and apply for certification to run these ads." That summary mentions no registration with Colijuegos for lottery operators. The summary is a machine-generated reading of the policy, though, and the help page itself states that "the English version is the official language used to enforce Google Ads policies." Until the policy page is updated on October 21, the table is the only authoritative statement, and it places both sentences side by side without settling the point.

A spelling that differs from the regulator's own

Google's notice spells the licensing body "Colijuegos". The Colombian state entity that administers games of chance uses the name Coljuegos, without the second "i", including in its own web address, coljuegos.gov.co. The same spelling appears in the existing Colombia row of the live policy, and in one of the suggested questions under the help page's AI agent prompt: "Why must Colombian gambling operators register with Colijuegos?" The discrepancy is unlikely to change how certification reviews work, but it is the name operators will see in Google's interface and documentation.

Who the CNJSA is

The CNJSA is a different body from Coljuegos. According to La Republica, which published a guide to the actors regulating Colombia's games of chance on March 2, 2026, the council sets the guidelines under which the country's 15 lotteries operate, and departmental operators report to it. Traditional lotteries in Colombia are run by departments and the Capital District, with the aim of generating public revenue, and a department may not operate more than one traditional ticket lottery, according to the same report. The council, Coljuegos and the health superintendency, Supersalud, jointly examined a prize awarded by the Loteria de Medellin, La Republica reported, and found no irregularities.

Why would Google name a second authority at all? That structure explains why Google's notice names a different authority for lotteries than for casino games and betting. Colombian lotteries operate under a public, departmental model with their own council, while online casinos and sports betting operators have been certified by Google on the strength of registration and licensing with Coljuegos. The notice does not name any operator, does not say how many entities hold CNJSA authorization for online sales, and does not describe what form the authorization document takes.

How certification works

The notice states that "advertisers must apply for certification." Authorization from a regulator is a prerequisite, not a substitute. PPC Land has tracked how Google's certification process has become more demanding over the past two years, and those requirements now apply to any Colombian lottery that seeks to advertise.

In September 2024, Google required gambling advertisers to recertify after material changes, treating failure to do so as an egregious violation that can lead to immediate account suspension. A change in licensure that affects certification counts as a material change under that rule. For a lottery operator whose CNJSA authorization is renewed, amended or withdrawn, that clause is directly relevant.

In January 2026, Google said it would restrict gambling certification to accounts in "good policy health", effective March 23, 2026. The same update barred certification for sites hosted on free platforms or on sub-domains of third-party hosts, and allowed Google to revoke certificates held under manager accounts that had accumulated a significant volume of revocations among their managed accounts.

The most recent change came into force on August 26, 2026, when Google introduced new application forms requiring one application per country. That revision also set out landing page requirements: an age warning, addiction resources, terms and conditions, and a footer naming the licensee, the licence number and the data controller named in the privacy policy. Affiliate sites must state that outbound links go only to entities "licensed and authorized in the relevant geographic location," and operators that promote apps must link their domain to their store listing and back again.

A Colombian lottery approaching certification after October 21 enters that system as it now stands. It will need a dedicated application for Colombia, a domain it owns and operates, landing pages that carry the required disclosures, and an account history that meets Google's undefined policy health threshold. The October 5 notice adds the CNJSA document to that list without altering any of the other conditions.

Where Colombia sits in Google's Latin American map

Google's gambling policy in Latin America has been assembled country by country, typically in response to new national licensing regimes. PPC Land reported in July 2024 that Google would accept licensed online gambling ads in Peru from August 7, 2024, for operators licensed by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism. Two months later, Google changed its betting rules for Brazil from September 30, 2024, after Brazil's Secretariat of Prizes and Bets published Ordinance No. 1,475/2024. That Brazilian update required lottery operators to reapply for certification and banned gambling aggregators of every kind.

Lotteries have generally been treated as a separate case. In Lithuania, Google began accepting ads from state-licensed lottery operators on March 30, 2022, while brick-and-mortar casinos stayed barred. In Ukraine, the opening that took effect on July 14, 2025 covered state lotteries alongside poker, betting and casino games, with a separate licence required for each category. Colombia now follows a similar pattern in which a lottery-specific authority stands behind a lottery-specific line in the policy.

Colombia is absent from a parallel list. On July 20, 2026, PPC Land reported that Google would drop certification for gambling ads bought through Authorized Buyers in 37 markets from August 10, 2026. Four Latin American countries appear on that list: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Peru. Colombia does not. Google said at the time that the Authorized Buyers change did not alter its Google Ads gambling policy, so the October 5 notice concerns Google Ads only and leaves the programmatic position for Colombia unchanged.

Why this matters for marketers

For lottery operators in Colombia, the change creates access to paid search and Google's other ad surfaces for a product that was previously ineligible. Lottery ticket sales are a revenue source for departmental budgets, and the ability to advertise online purchase in Google results is a new channel for those entities, provided they clear certification.

For agencies, the timing is tight. The notice was posted 16 days before the effective date, and the policy page itself will not reflect the change until October 21. Certification reviews are not instantaneous. When Google opened lottery courier advertising in Puerto Rico, PPC Land reported that reviews typically take five to seven business days, and longer during busy periods. Any lottery campaign planned around the effective date depends on how quickly Google processes applications that cite a type of authorization it has not previously accepted for Colombia.

For publishers and affiliates working in Colombian gambling, the change widens the pool of certified advertisers. It does not create a route for aggregators, comparison sites or affiliates to run lottery ads on their own behalf, since the notice ties eligibility to "entities authorized by" the CNJSA.

Enforcement history is also part of the picture. Google classifies gambling violations as egregious, and PPC Land's November 2025 report on offline gambling restrictions in 35 countries noted that such violations can bring immediate account suspension. A lottery operator that starts advertising before its certificate is issued, or that promotes products outside its CNJSA authorization, faces the same regime as a casino operator.

What the notice leaves unanswered

Several points are not addressed in the source. The notice does not list which Google ad surfaces the change applies to. It gives no reason for the change and cites no Colombian regulation, decree or request from the CNJSA. It does not say whether lottery operators that already hold Coljuegos registration for other products need a separate application. It does not state whether scratch cards or instant lottery products fall within "lotteries". And it does not explain the treatment of lottery resellers or couriers, a category Google regulates separately in the United States.

The notice also does not resolve the reading of the requirements column discussed above. The updated policy page, due on October 21, may answer that question.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Google Ads, and Colombian lottery operators authorized by the Consejo Nacional de Juegos de Suerte y Azar (CNJSA). Online casino and betting operators registered with Coljuegos, spelled "Colijuegos" in Google's documents, remain under the existing rules.

What: Google is adding lotteries to the list of online gambling products that certified advertisers may promote in Colombia, bringing the list to eight products. Lottery operators must provide CNJSA authorization and apply for Google certification. The notice does not make clear whether lottery operators must also be registered with Coljuegos.

When: The notice was posted on October 5, 2026. The change takes effect on October 21, 2026, when the Gambling and games policy page will be updated.

Where: Colombia, on Google Ads, as set out in the change log of Google's Advertising Policies Help Center.

Why: Google gives no reason. Colombian lotteries operate under a departmental public model overseen by the CNJSA rather than the Coljuegos licensing route used by online casinos and betting firms, so the policy names a separate authority for them. The change opens a channel for lottery advertising that Google's policy previously excluded, under certification rules that have tightened through 2024, 2025 and 2026.