Social media site X bans gambling paid partnerships
Social media platform X has banned paid partnerships that have a gambling focus.
In a change made without fanfare on Feb. 13, the site formerly known as Twitter added gambling to its list of prohibited industries for paid partnerships. X defines “gambling products and services” as including lotteries, social casinos, sports betting, and other gambling-related content.
That puts gambling products alongside things including adult and sexual products and services, alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, health and wellness supplements, weaponry and weight-loss products on X’s banned list for paid partnerships.
Influencers and affiliates likely affected
Violators of the new gambling policy would face punishments ranging from mandatory post removal to account suspension, based on the severity and frequency of the violations.
X defines paid partnerships any post that is created by a user in exchange for compensation or another incentive from a third party, including direct payments, affiliate commissions, revenue-sharing agreements, referral and discount codes or gifts. X’s policies for paid partnerships are different from its advertising policies, meaning that gambling content that is prohibited under paid partnerships may be permissible in X Ads.
The change effectively means that influencers or other people or entities cannot be paid or otherwise incentivized to promote gambling on the platform through organic, non-advertising posts. The change is likely to affect individual influencers and content creators as well as media and other organizations that focus on betting and odds tips or commission-based sportsbook links.
X marks the spot for prediction markets
X made the change regarding gambling content while it has tied itself more closely with prediction market platforms and the emerging form of gambling-style event contracts they offer.
The site signed a deal with Polymarket in June 2025 that made the operator, which was at that time not authorized to operate in the U.S., the social platform’s official prediction market partner. The deal included sharing real-time data to inform news updates and prediction market recommendations, as well as giving Polymarket users access to X’s Grok AI tool to give them insights and context on trading markets.
That came after Kalshi announced it had landed a partnership with X owner Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI, an announcement it later retracted. Kalshi told SBC Americas at the time that “there were miscommunications about the timing of the announcement between us and xAI, so we retracted the story.”
X’s gambling policy update did not provide any clues as to where prediction markets stand in comparison to typical gambling products like casino games or sports betting. Another prohibited category for paid partnerships is “financial products, services or opportunities,” with cited examples including crypto products.
Other media platforms make changes
Other media and tech platforms have also shifted the way they treat gambling content in recent times.
Google changed its Gambling and Games Advertising Policy last April to specifically designate which countries are approved for gambling-related advertising and to require aggregators and affiliates to register with the company as a gambling advertiser. Google also introduced a prohibition on promoting social casino games, which it define as “online simulated gambling-style games where there is no opportunity to win something of value.”
In November, it made another change, this time to clarify that sweepstakes casinos “are not social casino games” and therefore fall outside of the scope of its gambling advertising policy.
Meanwhile, as of Jan. 21 of this year, Google allows prediction markets to advertise as financial products, as long as they are either authorized by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a designated contract market (DCM) or as a brokerage by the National Futures Association (NFA).
A spokesperson for Google stated that the change was unrelated to its new partnerships with Kalshi and Polymarket.
https://sbcamericas.com/2026/02/19/x-bans-gambling-paid-partnerships/