Fraud, Farm, and Gambling Apps: Analysis of the App Store Report for 2025

Apple publishes an App Store report every year — and for regular users, it looks like just another PR move. But if you look at the numbers from a different angle, it's a clear illustration of how the App Store is evolving. And affiliates can actually pull some useful insights from it.

In this piece, we broke down Apple's report and highlighted the key takeaways for the mobile traffic niche.

The scale of the anti-fraud system

The first thing to know from the report: $2.2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions blocked in 2025, and $11.2 billion over six years. These are staggering volumes — and stopping them requires enormous resources.

In 2025, the moderation team reviewed 9.1 million submissions. Over 2 million were rejected — including 1.2 million new apps and 800,000 updates. Apple notes that the system now combines manual review with machine learning: AI analyzes similarity patterns between apps, detects suspicious changes in product updates, and helps human reviewers focus on what matters most.

In parallel, Apple removed 195 million fake reviews, 7,800 apps were pulled from search results, and 11,500 were excluded from ranking charts due to suspected manipulation. ASO boosting via review and rating farms is being systematically blocked before users ever see the app.

Bait-and-switch, account farming, and gambling

The most telling figure for media buyers: 59,000 apps removed for bait-and-switch. This is when an app passes review as a neutral product — a puzzle, a calculator, a utility — and then, after approval, changes its functionality to something else: financial scams, gambling, subscriptions with hidden terms.

The system detects post-approval changes — any suspicious update gets flagged for additional review. 59,000 in a single year signals a systematic crackdown, including on developers of affiliate cloaking apps.

Apple also addressed developer account farming. The company shut down 193,000 profiles for fraud and rejected 138,000 new ones at the registration stage.

Algorithms also blocked 28,000 illegal apps on pirate platforms. The report lists the categories: malware, 18+ apps, gambling apps, and clones of trusted products. Apple rejected 2.9 million attempts to install or launch apps distributed outside the App Store.

As a bottom line — 40.4 million accounts were deactivated for fraud and abuse. These are predominantly bots and farms used for spamming and generating fake reviews.

Takeaways

App Store moderation has long moved beyond manual app review. Apple is systematically identifying rule circumvention attempts, illegal products, rating manipulation, and other violations.

At the same time, the report contains only Apple's own data. So it's impossible to assess what share of violations was actually caught — and what slipped through. That said, the sheer scale of the anti-circumvention effort points to a significant tightening of controls.

Judging by both public and private communities, the situation in the iOS segment of the affiliate niche is more or less stable. But developers will undoubtedly have more work cut out for them in the years ahead. Apple is closing every loophole as fast as possible — and investing enormous resources to do it.