Gambling Advertising in Georgia: The Ban and What It Allows

Georgian law bans advertising of games of chance, betting and their organisers in any form, online included, and allows it only in a handful of named places. This post covers what Article 8³ of the Law on Advertising permits, how the ban reaches international permit holders, B2B suppliers and affiliates working from Tbilisi, and what a breach costs.

What Article 8³ Bans

Article 8³ was added to the Law on Advertising by Law No. 1188 of 22 December 2021 and amended in February 2023 and June 2026. It bans the dissemination of advertising "in any form or by any means, including via an electronic communications network" for games of chance, totalizator (betting), lotto and bingo, and for the organisers of each.

The organiser limb matters. A brand campaign that never mentions a game, a bonus or odds is still advertising about a gambling organiser, so it falls under the same ban. Promotional prize draws run by a gambling organiser are caught too, and may be advertised only on its licensed website or inside its venue (Art. 8³(4)).

The Exceptions to the Ban

Article 8³(1) lists the places where gambling advertising is allowed. Anything outside them, from a billboard to a social media post, is banned.

Signage has its own cap: no more than one sign carrying gambling information, of no more than 10 sq m (Art. 8³(2)). The June 2026 package that created the international permits (Law No. 1826) brought international online casino, slots and betting websites into the first exception.

Broadcast Advertising Is Banned Outright

Television and radio have a separate, stricter rule. Article 63(2²) of the Law on Broadcasting, added by Law No. 1189 of 22 December 2021 and in force since 1 March 2022, bans advertising, sponsorship announcements and product placement for gambling, betting, lotto, bingo and their organisers. There is no sponsorship exception on air.

Broadcast breaches are handled by the Communications Commission, and a licensed or authorised broadcaster that airs a gambling ad faces the same fines as any other advertiser (Administrative Offences Code Art. 158⁵(3)-(4)).

Who the Ban Applies To

The Law on Advertising governs advertising on Georgia's markets for goods, services and finance (Art. 2(1)). It applies to Georgian and foreign persons who produce, place or disseminate advertising in Georgia (Art. 2(3)), and to acts of Georgian persons abroad that cause, or may cause, negative effects in Georgia such as restricted competition or misled consumers (Art. 2(4)).

Article 20 splits responsibility between the parties. The advertiser answers for the content it supplied, the producer for how the ad was designed and made, and the distributor for when, where and by what means it ran. A banned placement is a question of where and how, which puts the publisher in the frame alongside the brand that paid for it.

What the Ban Means for International Permit Holders

Georgia's international permits serve only players who are not Georgian citizens, and the licensed website must state in Georgian and English that citizens of Georgia and foreigners under 18 may not play. The permit holder can advertise on that website, and inside Georgia only through the other exceptions.

Marketing abroad is a different question. Georgian law ring-fences Georgian citizens only, so whether a foreign market may be targeted, and how it may be advertised to, is decided by that country's law, and markets that prohibit online gambling go on the operator's list of restricted countries. Article 2(4) reaches a Georgian company's advertising abroad only where it causes negative effects inside Georgia.

For a sportsbook, sponsorship is the main exception. Whether it holds a domestic permit or a Georgian sports betting license for foreign players, its name can appear on a club's kit and on banners inside the ground as consideration for the sponsorship, and nowhere else at the event. One grey area is recruitment: the article has no carve-out for job or employer-brand advertising by a gambling organiser, so a hiring campaign in Tbilisi is safest when it promotes the job rather than the brand.

What the Ban Means for B2B Suppliers

A studio or platform holding the Georgian B2B supply permit is not an organiser of games, so the organiser limb of the ban does not name it. The game limb is different, because advertising a game of chance is banned whoever pays for it. Our reading is that trade marketing to operators, such as a stand at an industry event or a pitch deck sent to a casino, is not advertising a game to the Georgian market, while a public campaign showing a slot title to Georgian consumers is. No ruling settles where that line falls, so the safe course for a supplier based in Tbilisi is to keep its marketing aimed at operators.

What the Ban Means for Affiliates Based in Georgia

An affiliate site is not a website on which a Georgian permit allows games to be run, so the first exception does not cover it, and the law applies to anyone disseminating advertising in Georgia. Our reading is that content aimed at Georgian users, or freely reachable by them, is advertising about gambling organisers with no exception to rely on.

Promoting foreign brands to players abroad sits outside the law's stated purpose, which is Georgia's own markets, but a Tbilisi-based affiliate publishing that content is arguably disseminating it in Georgia. Georgian law also shuts foreign brands out of the domestic market. Under Article 13¹ of the Law on Payment System and Payment Services, Georgian payment providers may not process residents' payments to foreign gambling companies, and card issuers block such payments by the gambling merchant code. Geo-blocking Georgia costs an affiliate almost nothing and takes away most of the exposure. It does not change how the commission is taxed, where the open question is whether an affiliate counts as "gambling business" under Georgia's 1% small business rate.

Fines for Breaking the Gambling Ad Ban

Article 158⁵ of the Administrative Offences Code, added in December 2021, fines a breach of the gambling advertising and signage rules at about €3,400, and about €6,900 when the same person repeats it after being penalised. The person fined must bring the advertising into line within one week at its own cost, or the fine is tripled.

Non-broadcast cases are heard by municipal bodies (Art. 209³), and the fine is issued as a penalty notice that doubles as the offence report. Each fine is a fixed sum, not a share of the campaign spend or of revenue.

Gambling Advertising in Georgia FAQ