Apple Store Gambling Policy
Any new gambling app that wishes to be listed on the Apple App Store needs to make sure they comply with Apple’s new set of guidelines. An article on macrumors.com highlighted many of the changes but there are a couple of key changes that solely affect gambling apps. The changes in guidelines apply to real money gambling apps and cover everything form sports betting to poker. The first new guideline requires that the app be completely free. The new guideline states that:
20.5 Apps that offer real money gaming (e.g. sports betting, poker, casino games, horse racing) must have necessary licensing and permissions in the locations where the App is used, must be restricted to those locations, and must be free on the App Store.
Next, gambling apps are no longer allowed to offer in-app purchases for credits or virtual currency to be used for real-money gaming.
Apple shares new App Store rules changes as regulators eye policies After a recent public dispute with developer Basecamp, Apple is making changes to the App Store.
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- Apple is mandating that developers of mobile applications downloaded via the company’s App Store rate even simulated gambling apps as appropriate only for users 17-years-old and up.
- Japanese Developers Criticize Apple's App Store Policies and Approval Process. Friday September 4. There are plenty of ways to do gambling and porn on the Internet. Big bad Apple isn’t.
- Important that the new gambling apps have to be revised for publication in Apple’s App Store. As for the existing apps, the operators have to make sure they comply with the Guideline policy by September 3, 2019. App Store Native Functionality. Apple keeps a good reputation and tries to be unique with regards to the gambling market.
20.6 Apps that use IAP to purchase credit or currency to use in conjunction with real money gaming will be rejected.
A couple of other significant changes to the policy are part of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Essentially, apps cannot collect information from children under 13 without verified parental consent.
17.3 Apps may ask for date of birth (or use other age-gating mechanisms) only for the purpose of complying with applicable children’s privacy statutes, but must include some useful functionality or entertainment value regardless of the user’s age.
17.4 Apps that collect, transmit, or have the capability to share personal information (e.g. name, address, email, location, photos, videos, drawings, persistent identifiers, the ability to chat, or other personal data) from a minor must comply with applicable children’s privacy statutes.
While the two new guidelines in relation to COPPA will not affect real-money gaming, it could affect some social media gaming sites that do not restrict teens from playing. Check out the App Review section of the Apple Store for all guidelines and the complete process for putting an app up for public consumption.
Apple’s easily abused Enterprise Certificate program isn’t just enabling snoopy Facebook and Google apps. It’s also being exploited by at least a dozen hardcore porn apps and a dozen gambling apps.
Last week, Facebook’s Research app – that paid people, including teens, to install a Virtual Private Network (VPN) app that planted a root certificate on their phones to get access to traffic from other apps – got the boot from Apple. The Research app was created under Apple’s Enterprise Certificate program, a way of creating non-App Store apps that are used for “specific business purposes” and “only for use by your employees” …not by consumers whose data Facebook was sucking up.
Within hours, Google found itself apologizing for doing something similar.
Now, it’s apparent how easy it is to use enterprise certificates to avoid the App Store’s content policies prohibiting apps that show “explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.”
According to Tech Crunch, the developers behind the gambling and porn apps have either passed what it calls Apple’s “weak” Enterprise Certificate screening process or piggybacked onto a legitimate approval.
Apple was swift to react when Tech Crunch broke the news about Facebook’s and Google’s “clear breach” of its certificate policies. After briefly revoking the companies’ certificates (for all apps, including those that were, per Apple’s policy, used by employees), Apple has over the past few days gone on a bit of an app-disabling spree. Some of the dozens of porn and gambling apps that Tech Crunch initially found have vanished in the process.
As of Tuesday, still-functioning porn apps included Swag, PPAV, Banana Video, iPorn (iP), Pear, Poshow and AVBobo, and the gambling apps still available included RD Poker and RiverPoker. As of Wednesday, Banana Video, for one, was still hanging in there.
How ‘iPorn’ et al. get enterprise certificates
All developers have to do to get an enterprise certificate is to fill out an online form, fork over $299, hand over an easily found D-U-N-S business ID number (Apple provides a tool to look it up) and business address, and use an up-to-date Mac. Tech Crunch’s Josh Constine even found these step-by-step directions on how to get an Apple enterprise app developer license.
Then, the developers sit back and wait for a call from Apple. It takes one to four weeks. The last step: lie to the Apple rep about plans to only distribute the apps internally.
Often, part of the ruse is for these violative apps to hide behind company names that obscure their real purpose: for example, Tech Crunch found such business names as Interprener, Mohajer International Communications, Sungate and AsianLiveTech. Constine says that he also came across what appeared to be “forged or stolen credentials to sign up under the names of completely unrelated but legitimate businesses.” From his report:
Dragon Gaming was registered to U.S. gravel supplier CSL-LOMA. As for porn apps, PPAV’s certificate is assigned to the Nanjing Jianye District Information Center, Douyin Didi was licensed under Moscow motorcycle company Akura OOO, Chinese app Pear is registered to Grupo Arcavi Sociedad Anonima in Costa Rica and AVBobo covers its tracks with the name of a Fresno-based company called Chaney Cabinet & Furniture Co.
Apple Store Gambling Policy Online
Apple will send the apps – and maybe their devs – packing
Apple wouldn’t explain how these apps are getting past its vetting to get into the Enterprise Certificate app program. Nor would it discuss whether it will change how it deals with its enterprise program, including whether it will in the future follow up to see if apps that get in are, or remain, compliant, or if it plans to change its admission process. It did, though, give Tech Crunch a statement about its plans to shut down such apps and potentially to ban the developers from building iOS products:
Apple Store Gambling Policy 2020
Developers that abuse our enterprise certificates are in violation of the Apple Developer Enterprise Program Agreement and will have their certificates terminated, and if appropriate, they will be removed from our Developer Program completely. We are continuously evaluating the cases of misuse and are prepared to take immediate action.