Gaming Affiliate Licensing.

Not every business that mentions online betting or casino operators needs a licence, but many affiliate business models do fall within scope of the Affiliate Suitability Licence regime administered by the Hellenic Gaming Commission (HGC). Whether your business is caught depends on factors such as how directly your site or platform promotes or refers traffic to a licensed operator, and the nature of your commercial relationship with that operator. This is a fact-specific assessment, and it is worth getting a clear answer before you launch or scale an affiliate business targeting the Greek market, rather than assuming your model falls outside the regime.

The Affiliate Suitability Licence is the authorisation regime the HGC applies to businesses that promote licensed betting or gaming operators to the Greek market. It is intended to give the regulator visibility over, and a degree of control over, the affiliate channel through which Greek consumers are directed toward licensed gaming products, alongside the licensing of the operators themselves. The specific documentation and suitability criteria involved are best confirmed with counsel against your current corporate structure before an application is prepared.

Promoting an unlicensed operator to the Greek market carries regulatory risk for the affiliate as well as the operator, since the framework is directed at the legality of the promotional activity itself, not only at the operator's own licensing status. Before entering into or continuing an affiliate relationship, it is worth confirming that the operator in question holds a valid Greek licence, and building that verification into your ongoing compliance process rather than treating it as a one-off check.

Advertising and marketing of gaming products in Greece is subject to specific content, disclosure and placement rules, which apply to affiliate marketing as well as to the operators' own advertising. This can affect how odds, bonuses and promotions are presented, what disclosures are required, and which channels or audiences a campaign may target. These rules are updated from time to time, so campaign content and channels should be checked against the current framework rather than a historical understanding of what was permitted.

Yes — GDPR applies to affiliate websites, comparison platforms and review sites in the same way it applies to any business processing personal data of individuals in the EU, whether through analytics, marketing cookies, lead-generation forms, or user accounts. Gaming-related content does not itself change the GDPR analysis, but the sector's marketing intensity and use of tracking and referral technology often means these obligations are more exposed to scrutiny than on a lower-traffic site, which makes a proper compliance review worthwhile.

Timelines depend on the completeness of the application, the complexity of the corporate structure behind it, and the HGC's own processing schedule at the time of filing, so we do not quote a fixed duration here. As a general matter, a well-prepared application with the supporting corporate and compliance documentation in order tends to move faster than one submitted with gaps that the regulator has to query. We can give you a realistic estimate for your specific structure once we have reviewed it.