Bulgaria’s Gambling Ad Reform Puts Affiliates at Risk

Bulgaria was already restricting gambling promotion before this year’s affiliate reforms. Changes published in May 2024 introduced broad advertising restrictions, including in broadcast, print and electronic media. The National Revenue Agency subsequently issued explanations of their scope and enforcement.

The separate affiliate licensing regime took effect on 1 August 2026. It brought performance-based gambling promotion explicitly into the regulatory framework, with the NRA responsible for licensing.

Article 30a established a two-part state fee: €6,000 annually, plus 10% of performance-linked commission. The variable element is withheld and paid by the gambling operator awarding the commission.

The regime also required affiliate promotion to comply with existing advertising restrictions. A licence therefore came with limits on how the activity could be conducted.

By September, a consultation draft was proposing a much broader advertising prohibition. The cabinet’s November backing has now advanced that policy direction towards parliamentary consideration.

The sequence matters. Within one year, Bulgaria has moved from building a supervised route for affiliates to proposing that their activity should cease. That is a substantial change in the regulatory proposition offered to the sector.

The existing statutory definition centres on promoting gambling under an agreement in return for commission linked to results, such as customers acquired, deposits, wagers or winnings.

It distinguishes that activity from advertising, media or technical services paid for without a link to those results. The distinction concerns the affiliate definition; broader advertising restrictions must still be considered separately.

For readers, this helps explain the business involved. An affiliate can operate a comparison website, publish reviews or build an audience through social and video channels. The regulatory question follows the commercial activity and remuneration, rather than the label a publisher gives its content.

It also makes the drafting consequential. Ending performance-based promotion, restricting commercial messages and regulating ordinary reporting involve different boundaries. Those boundaries need to be clear enough for businesses, regulators and courts to apply consistently.

An editorial format alone cannot answer whether a particular commercial arrangement falls within the rules.

Affiliate businesses commit money before the full return is known. Editorial teams, technology, search visibility and commercial relationships can require sustained investment. Some revenue arrangements then depend on what referred customers do over time.

A licensing regime can make those commitments easier to assess. Businesses can examine the requirements, calculate the charges and decide whether expected returns justify the cost. A fixed annual fee also represents a larger share of a smaller affiliate’s income, making scale relevant to that calculation.

The proposed reversal changes the question from the price of participation to the future availability of participation.

That creates several possible costs. A campaign may lose its commercial purpose; a market-specific content operation may require restructuring; contracts may need to be reconsidered. The size of any loss would depend on the business and the final law. Neither can be calculated from the cabinet announcement alone.

A licence does not guarantee that legislation will remain unchanged. Governments retain the responsibility to respond when they consider existing safeguards insufficient. But the speed of a reversal can affect investment decisions well beyond the immediate charge being altered.

In our view, predictability is part of regulatory quality. It allows a business to distinguish a difficult market from one whose basic operating assumptions cannot yet be relied upon.

The government’s stated objective deserves substantive consideration. Paid recommendations can create conflicts of interest, and promotion can encourage spending. Requiring a licence does not, by itself, demonstrate that a recommendation is balanced or that vulnerable consumers are protected.

Equally, removing a licensed marketing channel requires a practical account of how the replacement approach will work.

The cabinet statement envisages limited brand visibility in specified sponsorship and support arrangements, including sport, culture, healthcare and education. Those exceptions make the remaining routes to consumer attention an important part of the policy’s design.

If the proposal reduces some forms of promotion while preserving others, the relevant questions include who can use the permitted channels, what messages they may carry and how exposure will be monitored. The commercial advantages could differ substantially between operators.

Claims about a resulting move towards illegal gambling also need evidence. The possibility is a legitimate policy concern, but the announcement does not establish how many customers would change behaviour or where their spending would go.

The useful test is whether the eventual system reduces harmful exposure and can act against prohibited promotion in practice. Neither a licensing framework nor a prohibition should be judged solely by its stated ambition.

The affiliate proposal sits alongside planned increases in gambling taxes and licence-related charges. It therefore raises a wider question about the economics of operating in the regulated market.

An operator could face higher regulatory costs while also losing access to a channel used to acquire customers. Its response might involve different marketing expenditure, a change in product investment or a reassessment of the market’s expected return.

Those are possible responses, rather than announced industry-wide outcomes. Their significance would depend on the final charges, the channels left available and each company’s position.

Businesses with established audiences and access to permitted sponsorship could be better placed than new entrants needing to build recognition. That possibility deserves scrutiny alongside the consumer-protection case. Restrictions can change the competitive balance even when they apply formally to everyone.

For international publishers, the same issue appears through geographic exposure. Revenue spread across several brands can still depend heavily on one country’s permission to promote them. Brand diversification and regulatory diversification are different forms of resilience.

The proposal now needs to complete its parliamentary process. The adopted wording and transition arrangements will determine what happens to existing permissions, pending applications and commercial activity during the change.

For businesses following the debate, those details carry more weight than a headline suggesting the entire package is already in force. The treatment of ongoing arrangements and the timetable for implementation will shape the practical cost.

British readers should see the episode as a case study in the dependence of affiliate economics on local rules. A publisher’s audience and commercial relationships may take years to build, while the permission underlying one source of revenue can be reconsidered much faster.

Our view is that Bulgaria’s legislators should explain why the recently introduced framework cannot deliver the required protections and how the proposed replacement would do better. Clear boundaries and a workable transition belong in that explanation.

The next parliamentary text will show how far the government’s proposed reversal survives scrutiny. For affiliates, it will also help determine the value of the operating framework they were only recently asked to enter.