Google will allow gambling advertising to appear on its search pages in mainlaind Britain, reversing its decision last year to ban such adverts out of ethical considerations.

The company, which has the corporate motto "don’t be evil", announced that gambling companies licensed in the UK could now advertise on the search results pages in England, Scotland and Wales. The ban will remain in place for in the rest of the world.

The search engine currently also bans adverts for firearms, fireworks, "miracle cures", and prostitution.

Critics claimed that Google’s decision showed that the credit crunch had forced the company to alter its ethical stance because of new financial pressures.

"The bottom line really is it’s a lot of money," Hannah Kimuiu, from Greenlight, the advertising industry experts, said. "The gambling advertising industry is probably worth £100 million a year. A lot of advertisers have had to half their budgets in the past year. They’ve got to recover this money somewhere."

Google said that the reversal was a cultural decision and that gambling adverts were deemed acceptable in Britain because of “local business practices”.

A Google spokesman said: “At the time, we thought banning these adverts worldwide was the responsible thing to do and would give us a chance to review our policies. But we like to localise our policies to make sure they’re relevant to cultural and legal practices in a particular country.

Online gambling is legal in the UK, but has been banned in the US since last year. As a result, British gambling sites have boomed.

By some recent estimates, Google controls around 70 per cent of the online advertising market worldwide. Industry sources said that major gambling companies had been leaning on Google to reverse its policies in the last few months.

Google insisted that only licensed gambling companies will be allowed to advertise on its pages, and said such advertisers would be classed as “non-family safe,” meaning the adverts can be blocked by a parental control mechanism.

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