X Bans Gambling Paid Partnerships Under Updated Commercial Content Policy

What the Policy Change Covers

Under the revised Paid Partnerships Policy, X defines a paid partnership as any post created by a user in exchange for compensation or incentives from a third party. That includes direct payments, affiliate commissions, revenue-sharing agreements, referral or discount codes, brand ambassador arrangements, and gifted products or services.

Gambling products and services — defined by X as lotteries, social casinos, sports betting, and other gambling-related content — are now explicitly listed under Prohibited Industries. The sector joins alcohol, tobacco, adult content, pharmaceuticals, weapons, and financial products on the platform’s banned list for this type of commercial arrangement.

Violations of the policy may result in mandatory content removal, temporary account restrictions, or account suspension, depending on severity and frequency.

Advertising Remains Permitted, With Conditions

The ban applies specifically to organic paid partnership promotions, not to formal advertising. Licensed gambling operators can still run campaigns through X Ads, subject to jurisdictional compliance requirements and preauthorization from the platform. X has noted it will consider exceptions on a case-by-case basis for operators who go through an internal sales representative.

The distinction is significant for affiliates. Most affiliate-based content — including posts featuring referral links, promo codes, or commission-based sportsbook references — falls within X’s definition of a paid partnership. If disclosed as required by transparency rules, such content would breach the gambling prohibition. If not disclosed, it violates X’s own disclosure requirements. The result is that monetised organic gambling promotion on the platform faces a structural compliance conflict under the updated rules.

Industry Context

The policy update places X alongside other major platforms that have tightened controls around compensated gambling content. Meta requires written preauthorization before any gambling promotion can run on Facebook. TikTok restricts gambling-related monetised content. YouTube has moved to limit creator references to unapproved gambling sites. Google, as of January 21 this year, permits prediction markets to advertise as financial products provided they hold CFTC authorization as a designated contract market or NFA brokerage registration.

The timing of X’s change is notable given the platform’s existing commercial ties to prediction market platforms. X entered into a partnership with Polymarket in June 2025, making it the platform’s official prediction market partner and granting Polymarket users access to X’s Grok AI tool. Prediction markets do not appear to fall under the gambling category in X’s updated policy and are more likely classified under the financial products prohibition — though the platform has not clarified this explicitly.

X’s move comes weeks after the NFL prohibited prediction market commercials during the Super Bowl, as major media properties reassess how they align with betting and gambling partners.

Source: SBC Americas