Bulgaria’s Cabinet Approves Draft Gambling Advertising Ban

Bulgaria’s Council of Ministers approved a draft Gambling Act overhaul on November 11, 2026, proposing a full ban on gambling advertising, an end to affiliate promotion and higher taxes and licence costs. The government’s decisions record, published November 12, 2026, includes limited sponsorship and information exceptions; cabinet approval does not itself enact the ban.

The prohibition would cover gambling games, their organizers and associated trademarks and other distinguishing signs, regardless of the form, method or place of dissemination. The government’s stated aim is to strengthen addiction prevention and protect vulnerable groups. Limited trademark presence would remain for sponsorship of sports clubs, federations, associations and organizations, and for support of culture, healthcare and education.

The Finance Ministry’s impact assessment also preserves information needed to organize and participate in gambling on operator websites and inside licensed venues. Venue facades could carry limited identification of the site and operator, subject to area and content restrictions and a mandatory addiction warning. The Bulgarian Sports Totalizator could continue publishing draw and prize information.

Affiliate-operator licensing and activity connected with gambling promotion would be discontinued. That extends the proposal beyond the placement of advertisements to the businesses involved in popularizing gambling.

A Wider Fiscal Package

For the lottery and betting products covered by the draft, including online betting, the variable component of the two-part state fee would rise from 20% to 21% on January 1, 2027 and 22% on January 1, 2028. Online betting would also carry a minimum variable component of €100,000 per month.

Operators could have the additional one percentage point in 2027, and two points from 2028, remitted when those amounts are provided to licensed Olympic sports federations and professional football clubs for sponsorship, advertising or donations. Any remitted portion not used for that purpose would become payable to the state budget. The mechanism gives operators a financial incentive to direct the increase toward sport rather than simply treating it as an additional licence cost.

Land-based venues face a separate transition. For 2027, quarterly alternative taxes would be €600 per gaming machine or machine position, €13,000 per roulette or gaming table and €3,000 for other casino equipment. From January 1, 2028, that alternative tax would be replaced by a two-component state fee, adding a 20% variable charge on stakes minus paid winnings to the one-off licence fee, with specified monthly minima by equipment type.

The one-off online-betting licence fee would be €400,000. A new fee for licences covering gaming-equipment manufacturing, import, distribution and servicing would be €50,000 for five years and €100,000 for ten years. Other one-off licence fees, socially responsible behaviour contributions, fines and financial sanctions would also be increased or updated.

The fiscal measures reach beyond gambling licensees. Banks, payment institutions and electronic-money companies handling gambling stakes or winnings would owe the state the portion of their remuneration exceeding 1.5% of the transaction value, targeting revenue earned from facilitating those payments.

Foreign online-betting operators would need a Bulgarian place of business through which their online-betting revenue and attributable expenses are recorded. That establishment would have to be entered in the BULSTAT register before the operator receives its licence certificate. Incorporating a Bulgarian company would not be required, but the arrangement would create a local accounting trail for revenue, expenses and profit.

Prevention And Market Oversight

Annual socially responsible behaviour contributions would be €60,000 for online betting, €20,000 for casino games and €10,000 for other gambling games. Proceeds would be divided equally among the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education and Science. The education allocation would support information campaigns, preventive programmes, training and teaching materials, extending addiction-prevention work into the education system.

Land-based casino and gaming-hall systems would also maintain a remote electronic connection to National Revenue Agency systems. They would transmit information on registered devices, stakes, paid winnings, revenue and technical events in real time or at prescribed intervals, giving the agency a direct monitoring channel over venue activity.

The package builds on the Finance Ministry’s earlier proposal for a full gambling advertising ban, which underwent public consultation between September 23, 2026 and October 23, 2026. That consultation presented the draft as a way to increase budget revenue from gambling while limiting addiction and clarifying provisions that had proved difficult to apply.

The package leaves a narrower financial relationship between gambling and sport in place: broad promotion and affiliate activity would end, while limited sports sponsorship and a route for operator funding to licensed federations and professional football clubs would remain.