Deputy Editor
Social media platform X (formerly Twitter) has updated its paid partnerships policy, and influencers can no longer promote gambling products.
The update occurred on Friday and garnered little notice, with media coverage picking up on the change early this week. Now listed alongside products such as drugs, tobacco, weapons, and sex services:
Gambling products and services (including lotteries, social casinos, sports betting, and other gambling related content)
It’s important to note that this ban applies only to “paid partnerships,” defined as “the involvement of a third-party brand providing compensation or incentives to a user, such as an influencer or content creator, to promote their product or service.”
In other words, X users may still see gambling ads on their feed. However, these will be ads purchased through X Ads, rather than influencer-pushed content.
Accounts that run afoul of this policy risk post removal and eventual suspension.
Will X/Polymarket Partnership Benefit From Change?
Conspiracy theorists can point to the fact that X has a deal with Polymarket as its “official prediction market partner.” Arguably the world’s biggest prediction market due to its global reach and cryptocurrency integration, Polymarket is still in the process of establishing its U.S. product.
Prediction markets maintain that they aren’t gambling. But on a practical level, Polymarket is a competitor to the gambling providers that will take a hit under the new X policy.
That will be especially true once the Polymarket US product launches fully. It’s currently in a phased rollout to users who signed up for the waitlist.
Poker Influencers May Have to Alter Content Approach
So-called influencers — content creators who are paid to push products to their followers — have become an ever bigger part of social media in recent years. Like almost every other industry, poker has seen its share of them emerge.
If X was one of their favored mediums for publishing content, they’re going to have to alter their strategies going forward.
One option will be to simply migrate content to different platforms with fewer restrictions. Options will include Instagram and X-like platforms such as Bluesky. YouTube has proven to be a thorny place to navigate for poker content creators, so that will hardly provide a reprieve. TikTok, also once home to many betting influencers, especially on the sports side, has also cracked down on gambling content.
Trying to mask commercial content as something organic seems unlikely to work, either. Under the X paid partnerships policy, any user can report posts that violate the app’s terms. Influencers with a wide reach are sure to have watchdogs keeping an eye on their feeds, ready to report any perceived violation.
Image credit: Leo Reynolds/Flickr (license)
