So I have set up another campaign for a sports website that sells handicapping information and the first time I ran the campaign everything went smoothly than I tried to do another campaign and they had me under review for over a week than denied me because they said I needed a gambling certificate and can only advertise in select european countries. Now it wouldnt be a big deal but other sites are clearly using adwords for the terms I used and they wont take them down and wont approve me what do I do?????
Basically, many sites get away with it for a short period of time, and mostly that's what you'll see. Yours ran for a while. Some sites get away with it for ever. A good tactic if you are a cheat is, once you get away with it, don't touch your account. Every new ad ad or ad group invites further inspection. Google isn't perfect at catching rule-breakers. Algorithms can be cracked, and they pay their human reviewers peanuts and ask for high-speed reviewing.
If you want to have long term success with google, you need to abide by their rules, simple as that. If you want to cheat, good luck, it won't get you far. I am no cheat, but I had 2 adwords accounts banned before I got it right.
Google seems to pay more attention to the Ad Text rather than just keywords. For example, you can bid on "online gambling", and may not trigger Google's system to review your campaign if your ad text is something like "Got a Gambling Problem? Get more information to deal with your addiction." So try to use more general ad text and stay away from some keywords. If you want the keywords "Online Gambling", "Sports betting", etc in your ad text, then use the keyword insert feature {KeyWord: Insert}. Also, if you see a keyword status change to "under review by Adwords Specialist" then maybe delete it right away and try another keyword. Find ones that get approved right away and start with those. You're going to have to play around with it and take it slow. I've done affiliate work for poker sites and used adwords in the past. Google is very strict with Gambling and Adult sites so good luck.