Global social media giant TikTok has reaffirmed that promotion of gambling products in the TikTok Shop is strictly prohibited.
The announcement comes amid wider scrutiny of social media platforms about gambling promotion, with operators, trade bodies and national regulators particularly preoccupied with illegal gambling.
TikTok’s policy makes no distinction between legal and illegal gambling, however. The platform has reminded both sellers on the TikTok Shop, and content creators on the platform in general, that promotion of any form of gambling is prohibited via its e-commerce platform.
This includes the sale or promotion of betting, lotteries, roulette, and slot and claw machines.
Gambling activity is prohibited in both livestreams and videos, even if the user creating the stream or video does not engage with viewers (presumably by directly addressing them)..
“You are prohibited from selling any gambling-related products, services, or paraphernalia on the platform,” TikTok’s message to creators and sellers put it simply.
Gambling’s social media conundrum
According to Forbes, there were 5.9 billion people using some form of social media worldwide as of 2026 – amounting to more than two-thirds of all people on earth.
There are over two billion people using Meta-owned Facebook daily, and three billion users overall on Meta-owned Instagram. X, formerly Twitter, has around 550 million monthly users.
With so many of the world’s adult population, and countless sports fans, making regular use of social media, it’s logical that the gambling industry would want to factor it into marketing.
A quick glance on the right places on Facebook and X would quickly uncover gambling adverts – though regulated platforms will find themselves subject to the company’s internal policies around gambling content, such as Meta’s bans on gambling advertising in certain countries in line with those countries’ own regulations.
TikTok is a different matter. The platform, as seen in the recent policy announcement, is much tricker to advertise gambling on, in part due to its audience being heavily dominated by teenagers and young adults.
Some gambling companies do have a presence, like Paddy Power, which launched a TikTok account last year. However, the company does not run typical ads on the platform, but instead uses it to distribute content marketing like sketches, skits and stunts.
Further complicating things for the gambling industry is the above mentioned frustration with big tech and social media firms at large.
The proliferation of illegal gambling content and promotions across Meta platforms, X and TikTok has been cited as a key concern by regulators such as the UK’s Gambling Commission and the Netherlands’ Kansspelautoriteit (KSA).
Operators have also expressed displeasure. The UK’s Entain, for example, raised concerns about illegal gambling on social media during the World Cup, while Dutch trade body VNLOK has summoned Meta to court over the matter.
TikTok has made it clear that it does not allow gambling content on its TikTok Shop.
The regulated industry and the regulators which oversee it may be left pondering whether this just applies to them or to unregulated platforms which have no qualms with disregarding rules.
