ClickOut-Linked Sites Face Reported Google Penalties and Editorial Cuts

Several gambling and gaming publications associated with ClickOut Media have reportedly received manual Google penalties, according to an October 26 investigation by Press Gazette.

The report identifies Gambling Insider and says other affected sites are believed to include CasinoBeats, Gaming America and Playsense.nl. It links recent editorial redundancies to the search penalties, although that explanation has not been confirmed by ClickOut.

Gambling Insider journalists told the publication that multiple staff were laid off after a Google penalty in September. Press Gazette also reported job and freelance cuts at Esports Insider. 

Concerns Over Articles Published Under Former Staff Names

The investigation follows earlier reporting about AI-generated content appearing under journalists’ names after their departure.

Former writer Ben Touati said articles continued to carry his byline after he lost access to ClickOut’s systems. In earlier coverage, he described discovering casino content attributed to him that he had not written. 

Press Gazette’s latest report identified 28 casino articles under Touati’s name on Esports Insider’s German-language pages, with update dates between May and July 2026. Touati said his access had been revoked in March.

ClickOut told Press Gazette that it did not own Esports Insider. The publication said multiple employees nevertheless identified ClickOut as running the site. 

What a Manual Google Action Means

Google says human reviewers can impose manual actions when pages breach its search spam policies. Affected pages may rank lower or disappear from search results.

Its site reputation policy addresses third-party content placed on established websites primarily to benefit from their existing ranking signals. Affiliate links or third-party contributions alone do not constitute a breach. Google also distinguishes reputation abuse from scaled content abuse, which concerns material produced primarily to manipulate rankings regardless of how it was created. 

The reported penalties do not independently establish that AI use caused the ranking action. Nor do AI-detector scores alone prove how particular articles were produced.

In an earlier response reported by Press Gazette, ClickOut said it used AI-assisted content alongside human checks and editing. That statement did not resolve the separate allegations concerning former contributors’ bylines.