Bulgaria's draft gambling law would ban advertising and end affiliate licences from 2027

Bulgaria wants to stop gambling advertising almost entirely, and to end the licences of the affiliates that promote gambling for commission. A draft amendment to the Gambling Act (Закон за хазарта), published by the Ministry of Finance on 23 September 2026, would ban the advertising of gambling games, gambling operators and their trademarks "regardless of the form, manner and place of dissemination", and all licences held by affiliate operators would end with effect from 1 January 2027. The text is still a proposal: the public consultation (no. 12738-K on the government's consultation portal) runs until 23 October 2026, and Parliament has not voted on it.

The ministry gives two aims on the consultation page: raising state revenue from gambling, and limiting gambling addiction "by introducing a complete ban on gambling advertising". According to Gaming Intelligence and PressGiochi, the government has now also sent the draft to the European Commission, the step EU member states take so the Commission and other countries can comment before rules of this kind are adopted.

What the ban would cover

The rewritten Article 10 starts from a general prohibition and lists four exceptions:

• information on an operator's own website and inside licensed venues, where players need it to take part in the games;
• the broadcast and draws of the state-owned Bulgarian Sports Totalizator, and announcements of its winnings;
• signs on the front of a licensed venue, limited to 20% of the facade and no more than 50 square metres. At least 10% of that area would have to carry the warning "Gambling carries a risk of developing addiction" (our translation), and illuminated panels or screens with moving or changing content would not be allowed;
• branding on sports kit and at sports venues under sponsorship deals, except on kit or products meant for minors.

Licensed operators could still sponsor sports clubs and federations, and cultural, health and education events. TV or online broadcasts of sponsored sports events, however, could not add digital overlays of the sponsor's name beyond the signage physically at the venue.

Bulgaria already restricted gambling advertising in 2024. As Capital.bg has reported, those rules left room for billboards, venue signage and many websites, and gambling brands remained among the country's largest advertisers. The new draft removes the billboard route and is written to apply to every channel.

When the package was announced on 23 September, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said, according to the Council of Ministers press centre as reported by Gaming.net: "We are in practice introducing a complete ban on gambling advertising."

Affiliate licences would end on 1 January 2027

Draft §79 is one sentence long: licences issued to affiliate operators for promoting gambling "are terminated with effect from 1 January 2027". The draft also removes affiliate promotion from the list of activities the Gambling Act regulates, and does not replace the licence with any other permit. The ministry's explanatory memorandum says this follows from the ad ban, because affiliate activity is "directly connected" with the advertising and promotion of gambling games.

The licence is narrower than the word "affiliate" might suggest. Under the Act, an affiliate operator is someone other than the gambling operator who promotes gambling for commission linked to results, such as players brought in, deposits, stakes or winnings paid. Advertising agencies, media and technical providers whose pay is not tied to those results are expressly not affiliates and never needed this licence. They would be caught instead by the general advertising ban in the new Article 10.

The regime is also very new. According to the consolidated text of the Gambling Act (amended by State Gazette no. 69/2026), affiliate promotion became a licensed activity only on 1 August 2026, so the draft would end it within months of its start.

Affiliates have objected in the consultation. Several comments filed on the portal argue that regulated affiliate sites should be kept, under licence and tax rules, rather than closed down.

Higher fees and a local base for online operators

The draft also changes the state fee for Bulgaria's online gambling licence (the law's term is literally a licence for "online wagering", and it covers all gambling offered over the internet, not only sports betting). The fee has two parts: a one-off €400,000, plus a variable fee of 21% of stakes minus winnings from 1 January 2027 and 22% from 1 January 2028, with a minimum of €100,000 per month for each operator.

Foreign companies holding an online gambling licence would have to run it through a registered place of business in Bulgaria, through which revenue and costs from the Bulgarian licence are reported. Existing licence holders would have until 30 June 2027 to comply. If they do not, the draft says the executive director of the National Revenue Agency (NRA), Bulgaria's gambling regulator, permanently withdraws the licence.

Most of the law would take effect on 1 January 2027; some fee provisions for casinos and gaming halls would start a year later.

What happens next

Nothing in the draft applies yet. After the consultation closes on 23 October, the bill still has to be approved by the government and passed by the National Assembly, and the text can change along the way.

For players, the most visible change would be fewer gambling ads on TV, online and on the street. Licensed operators' own sites would still be allowed to publish the information needed to play.

Other countries are debating the same question: see our coverage of the House of Lords committee's call for a UK gambling ad ban, Australia's Adstop register and Entain's call to ban unlicensed sports sponsorship in the UK.

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