July 24, 2026

S12, a note about gambling ads

Show Notes
Transcript

Gambling ads have been appearing this season. I don't like that. Here's the situation.

***

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WEBVTT

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Hi, folks, it's Tz your favorite podcaster. I hope you

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are enjoying the new season the app on the phone.

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I want you to take a moment to give you an

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update about an issue we're having with the ads this season.

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Some of you have written or commented to say that

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you're hearing gambling ads. This is something I very much

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do not like. Here's what I can do about it

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and what I can't. The first thing to know is

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the ads on this show are programmatic. A machine inserts

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them automatically per listener the moment you hit play. I

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never hear them, and they're different for every person listening.

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Before this season aired, I went into my ad settings

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to try to turn gambling off. There are a few

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categories pregnancy, sexuality, politics, and illegal content, but there is

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currently no gambling category in Spreaker. My hope was that

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the illegal category might catch gambling ads, but alas it

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does not. Why is there a category for illegal content

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in the first place. For example, say you wanted to

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sell illegal drugs online and you wanted to run a

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campaign for it, why didn't that automatically disqualify you from

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doing business with Spreaker in the first place. Also, What

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is more bizarre is that Spreaker frames it to me

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as an upsell. It says, if I enable sensitive categories,

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I can increase my revenue. Each ad gets its IAB

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category from the advertiser. Spreaker doesn't inspect the ad and

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sort them into bins, so nobody tags themselves illegal, which

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means the honest answer to what campaign would air under

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illegal content is we have no verified examples of one,

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which means and checking the box to allow illegal content

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ads to run on a podcast does essentially nothing because

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there are no illegal content ads to pull from. After

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some research, here's what I believe is the root of

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the problem. IAB stands for the Interactive Advertising Bureau and

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the Illegal Content category. IAB two six was designed to

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work in the opposite way that Spreaker is using it.

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It wasn't meant for advertisers, it was meant for publishers.

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So say a website or a podcast talks about spyware,

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pirated content, copyright infringement, weapons, regulated substances, anything of that sort.

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The site gets flagged and the advertiser chooses whether they

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want their ads to show up in those places. And

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it's an old taxonomy system IAB two six as a

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category was removed outright in the two point zero system.

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Version one point zero has no gambling node at all.

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That is a named, documented problematic limitation of the IAB

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content taxonomy version one. It has no nodes for common

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things like tobacco, gambling, cannabis. So what happens is a

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sports book to clears itself as sports or business and

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finance both are technically true, and neither of those are blocked.

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An advertiser can pick a category that seems valid and

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the system allows the add through. So here's what I'm

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doing now, reaching out to Spreaker asking why they're running

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on a taxonomy one point zero with a known gambling gap.

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I don't want to run gambling ads on this show.

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I don't want to run them on this season. I

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don't want to run them on any of my seasons,

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and I apologize that you have to hear them. The

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only way for me to guarantee zero gambling ads right

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now is to shut off programmatic ads entirely. And those

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ads are part of how I keep this show running.

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This is still a very very small, independent show. I

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did the math last year, and I counted the hours

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I put in and the money we got out, and

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I make about fifteen dollars an hour doing this. I

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could make more money at my day job, but I

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love doing this and the fact that I can make

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any money at all is something I'm truly grateful for.

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But if I shut off my ads, I'm not sure

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if I can keep making the show. So as I said,

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I am reaching out to Spreaker. I'll keep you updated,

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and I want to add a real offer here if

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these ads are a threat to your recovery message and

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I'll give you the episodes free of ads, no questions

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asked tapes from the dark Side podat gmail dot com.

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Thank you for letting me know about this and staying

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with me through it until next time. Well you know

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what to do.

S12, a note about gambling ads

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