Annoying advertisements for online card games have been rampant on many websites whose domain names end in gov.vn, which signifies they belong to organizations and agencies under the government of Vietnam.
While the advertisements were already removed from some of the websites at the time of writing, they remain on others, such as those of the Department of Science and Technology of Binh Phuoc Province (skcn.binhphuoc.gov.vn) and the Division of Investment Promotion and Attraction of Nam Dinh Province (xuctienvathuhutdautu.namdinh.gov.vn).
The advertisements entice visitors to the websites to download applications or access web-based services of online casinos, sports betting, lotteries, slot games, fish shooting games, and 3D card games.
Gambling services run these advertising contents on the websites of the state-run organizations and agencies to increase search rankings for those services as the web pages are always rated as reputable by search engines like Google.
This is not the first time that advertisements for gambling games have invaded state-run Vietnamese agencies’ websites.
The issue has recurred since those websites have been outdated and full of security errors, according to Internet security experts.