Apple Tightens Rules on Gambling Apps

Technology giant Apple has clamped down on real money gambling apps delivered through their App Store, dictating that gambling services cannot be embedded in an app's HTML5 code, but must instead use native iOS code.

The company wrote in the guidelines for their App Store apps that: "HTML5 games distributed in apps may not provide access to real money gaming, lotteries, or charitable donations, and may not support digital commerce. This functionality is only appropriate for code that's embedded in the binary and can be reviewed by Apple. This guideline is now enforced for new apps. Existing apps must follow this guideline by September 3, 2019."

The mandate will likely cause headaches for betting groups, who often use HTML5 to code their casinos and sportsbooks. The move has already caused SugarHouse to not make their Pennsylvania online casino app available on Apple devices.

It'll be interesting to see if betting companies decide to convert their apps to Apple's code, or whether we'll see a large drop in the number of betting apps on the App Store in September.