Estonia rules out gambling ad crackdown as breach rate falls
TTJA’s 45% breach rate is down from 98.7% in 2023, and no gambling-specific tightening is planned.
Baltic and Western European regulators have tightened gambling advertising rules sharply since 2023, and Estonia has been widely expected to follow. In remarks published on 28 July 2026, Mari-Liis Aas, Consumer Protection Advisor at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia, told ERR the ministry has no plans to further restrict or ban gambling advertising, despite regulator findings that 45% of inspected advertisements breached the law.
What the TTJA supervision project found
The Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) reviewed 230 gambling advertisements published under 15 brands in its 2025 supervision project. It cleared 126 (55%) and found 104 (45%) in breach of the Advertising Act.
- Non-compliant warning text was the most common failure, at 79 advertisements
- Prohibited calls to action accounted for 54
- Advertising games of chance in a prohibited location for 46
- Misleading advertising for eight
The breaches were almost entirely digital: 71 in Google Ads on Google search, 24 on Meta, eight on YouTube, and one on an outdoor medium.
The rate has fallen sharply since 2023
TTJA presented the result as evidence of an improving market. The equivalent 2023 project found 98.7% of checked advertisements in breach. Enforcement in 2025 was measured: the authority opened or continued nine gambling advertising proceedings, 10 companies were given a hearing, and one received a precept.
Two prescriptive rules account for most failures
Section 29² of the Advertising Act covers all three main breach types: it requires a warning in wording fixed by statute, bans any call to participate in gambling or visit a gaming venue, and limits games-of-chance advertising to a few permitted places, including the venue itself and the operator’s own website. TTJA’s guidance sets out how it applies them — welcome bonuses for new customers, for example, count as a prohibited call to action.
Restrictions also vary by product. Mari-Liis Aas told ERR that games of chance such as poker, roulette, and slots fall under that near-total ban, while lotteries and sports betting may be advertised more widely, though not without limits.
No gambling-specific tightening planned
Aas said the ministry has no plan to restrict or ban gambling advertising further, and that its objective is to modernise the Advertising Act as a whole. She added that the process is at too early a stage to say whether, or to what extent, gambling advertising rules will change. That is consistent with a policy direction that has so far favoured modernisation over restriction.
Aas said (translated from Estonian):
‘We at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications have indeed set a goal of updating the Advertising Act, but since this entire procedure is in its very early stages, unfortunately it is not yet possible to say whether or to what extent the gambling advertising regulation will be changed in the future.’
Where the actual risk sits
The government’s action programme contains a task to ban gambling and payday loan advertising to prevent household debt. But MKM’s published position on the reform argues other measures are better suited to that goal, and says it must first analyse the impact and justification of a ban.
It also wants to update rules that name specific media. Sports betting advertising is barred from television and radio, but the Act says nothing about search, social, or video. TTJA found 103 of its 104 breaches on Google, Meta, and YouTube.
The timetable has slipped repeatedly: six working group meetings in 2023, consultation in February 2024, then a delay to drafting. A blanket ban gained political traction in 2023 and became an action programme task. In July 2026, Aas said the process remained at a very early stage.
One caveat on the data
The 230 advertisements are a targeted sample, not the full universe of gambling advertising in Estonia. TTJA runs project-based supervision on the basis of its own risk forecast, prioritising products that are banned or heavily restricted. The 45%, therefore, describes compliance among higher-risk brands and channels, and should not be read as a market-wide figure.
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