Online Casinos in Bulgaria

The Legal Position

Online gambling in Bulgaria is licensed. The governing statute is the Закон за хазарта (Gambling Act), adopted by the 41st National Assembly on 15 March 2012, promulgated in State Gazette issue 26 of 2012 and amended many times since. Only the games of chance provided for in the Act may be authorised and organised, and a licence may be issued for a remote game of chance only where a list of statutory conditions is met simultaneously.

Who Regulates It

Supervision sits with the Национална агенция за приходите (National Revenue Agency). The transfer of the regime to the agency predates the 2024 amending act, which assumes the agency throughout rather than effecting the change; what that act, adopted by the 49th National Assembly on 30 April 2024, does is give the agency's executive director a set of specific powers. He issues the notice that must precede a licence revocation and gives the operator a month to remedy the breach, he enters and removes names on the statutory register of barred persons at least once a month, and he is one of the two officials who may order the removal of illegal content advertising or offering unlicensed online gambling under article 9(1) of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, the Digital Services Act. The agency also publishes, in an open machine-readable format, data on operators' active licences and on the internet pages used for online betting. The Държавна комисия по хазарта (State Commission on Gambling) that older guides name no longer carries this role.

What a Remote Licence Requires

Among the conditions for a remote gambling licence, the Act requires that the operator's communications equipment and the central point housing its central computer system be located in Bulgaria, another European Union member state, another state party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, or Switzerland; that the central computer system register and identify players and store and transmit, in real time, information on concurrent game sessions, each player's stake and each player's payout to a server of the National Revenue Agency; and that all data on gambling services offered on Bulgarian territory be stored on a control local server located on Bulgarian territory. Data must be kept in the form in which it was created for five years after the limitation period for the related public liabilities expires.

How Unlicensed Supply Is Blocked

The 2024 amendment attacks unlicensed supply from several directions at once. Undertakings providing public electronic communications networks or services must not give access to internet pages through which unlicensed operators organise games of chance. Payment institutions must not make payments intended for participation in online gambling to or from unlicensed persons. Postal operators offering money transfers must not transfer money to or from unlicensed persons, or from anyone under 18 to a licensed operator. Betting shops, gaming halls and casinos must not provide players with equipment or devices for reaching online gambling. The sale of prepaid vouchers intended for online betting is prohibited. And natural persons are themselves prohibited from taking part in games of chance organised by anyone without a licence - a prohibition on the player, not only on the operator, which is unusual and worth knowing before assuming an unlicensed site is a safe choice.

Advertising

The 2024 amendment replaced article 10 of the Act outright, so anything written about a prohibition on "direct advertising" describes the earlier text. Under the article as it now stands, advertising of games of chance is prohibited in radio and television programmes, apart from the broadcast of the state Bulgarian Sports Totalizator's draws and their announcement; in public places, including the façades of buildings; in printed works and electronic media, including websites; on state and municipal property other than premises licensed under the Act; and on more than 5 per cent of the total advertising area of any outdoor advertising provider. Three places are then carved out as permitted rather than prohibited: billboard-type outdoor structures at least 300 metres from schools, universities, community centres, playgrounds, pupil and student halls of residence and premises providing social services to children and young people; the façade of a licensed gambling venue, for that venue's own business, up to 20 per cent of the façade and no more than 50 square metres; and sports equipment, sports facilities, halls, stadiums and pools and the materials or products of sports federations, clubs, associations and organisations — with one exception inside that permission, which is that sports equipment, materials or products intended for use by children and minors stay off limits. Permitted advertising may name the games, the operator's registered trade mark and the draws and their prizes and nothing else, may not contain figures, and must give at least a tenth of its area to the warning that gambling carries a risk of developing dependence — a requirement that applies to the first two permitted forms and to the third, with the exception of sports equipment. On 23 September 2026 the Ministry of Finance opened a public consultation, running to 23 October 2026, on a further amendment bill whose stated purpose is to raise state budget revenue from gambling and to limit gambling addiction by introducing a complete ban on gambling advertising. That is a bill, not law.

Where and by Whom Land-Based Gambling May Be Offered

The 2024 amendment restricts gaming machines and casino gambling to the urbanised territory of settlements with more than 10,000 inhabitants according to official National Statistical Institute data, except for national resorts within the meaning of the Tourism Act and settlements no more than 30 kilometres from Bulgaria's road, rail and river border checkpoints. It also requires that investments be maintained at no less than the established minimum for the whole period of the licence.

Currency

Bulgaria adopted the euro on 1 January 2026. The government's official changeover site states that the monetary unit from that date is the euro, divided into one hundred cents, that the lev and the euro were both legal tender from 1 January to 31 January 2026, that the lev ceased to be legal tender after that month of dual circulation, and that the fixed conversion rate is 1 EUR = 1.95583 BGN. Balances in local bank accounts were converted to euro automatically and free of charge on 1 January 2026.

Sweepstakes Casinos

A sweepstakes casino is not a real-money casino and is not a licensed alternative to one. The dual-currency sweepstakes model is a United States construct built on United States sweepstakes and promotional-game law. No Bulgarian statute, regulator page or government source cited below addresses that model, so Bulgaria's sweepstakes status is not established, and it should not be inferred from the absence of a sweepstakes category in the licensing framework.

Player Protection

Participation in games of chance is confined by the Act to adults with legal capacity who are not restricted by that or another statute. The National Revenue Agency keeps a register of persons barred from gambling, which its executive director updates at least monthly and to which he may give operators access. The Национална информационна линия за наркотиците, алкохола и хазарта runs a help line on 0888-99-18-66, with contact also by chat and e-mail; it was set up in 2008 by the Асоциация за рехабилитация на зависими „Солидарност“ and is a member of FESAT, the European foundation of drug help lines.