European betting brands know the familiar acquisition playbook well. Sponsorship builds awareness, search captures users who are already ready to choose, affiliate sites collect demand through comparisons and reviews, programmatic helps extend reach, and CRM brings users back into the app.
But that playbook is becoming more expensive and more complex. Acquisition costs are rising, affiliate traffic increasingly overlaps with already warmed-up audiences, and regulators are making betting advertising more restricted and fragmented. At the same time, the market continues to grow: according to estimates, online betting in Europe will rise from roughly $22.65 billion in 2025 to $25.10 billion in 2026, with sports betting remaining the largest segment. The question is no longer how to buy more of the same familiar traffic. It is where to find new reach that can be used legally and safely for the brand.
Fan behavior is changing at the same time. Sports fans no longer wait only for the broadcast. They discuss games in short videos, watch reactions, analysis, predictions, memes, and content from sports creators. TikTok has become a separate layer of sports culture. According to platform data, 85% of fans use TikTok during matches, 90% take at least one action outside the platform after watching sports content, and 59% say sports content on TikTok is often more entertaining than the games themselves.
At the same time, TikTok has become not just a reach platform, but a more mature advertising channel: with app promotion campaigns, web conversions, Smart+ automation, and sports products such as TikTok GamePlan for teams and rights holders. That is why the news about sports betting ads opening in approved European markets matters not just because of the announcement itself. The context matters: TikTok is opening access to sports audiences where they already spend time, but only brands prepared to account for platform rules, licensing, and local market specifics will be able to use the opportunity properly.
Through Evido, part of Aitarget Group and an official TikTok Marketing Partner, licensed sports betting companies can plan and launch TikTok campaigns in 25 approved European countries.
25 approved markets, and what "approved" really means
Through Evido, regulated sports betting campaigns can now be planned in the following European countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Israel, Ireland, Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, Croatia, Czechia, Switzerland, Sweden, and Estonia.
An "approved market" does not mean ads can be launched automatically. It means the country is on the list of markets where Evido can support the launch of sports betting advertising on TikTok.
Every campaign is still reviewed separately. The operator must hold a valid local license, and the advertising must comply with the laws of the specific country, TikTok rules, age-restriction requirements, ad content requirements, landing page requirements, and responsible gambling messaging.
A country may be on the approved list, but launch depends on the documents, account setup, creatives, website, and whether all of it passes TikTok review.
In practice, a brand cannot simply take one campaign and launch it across every country on the list. Each market requires separate review and adaptation.
In Germany, local licensing rules must be taken into account. In Spain, as the Luckia/Performics case showed, launch may require long coordination between the operator, agency, and platform before the first creative goes live. A message that works well for the Netherlands may be wrong for Poland. A creative that passes review in Ireland may need revision for Sweden.
What sports betting brands can realistically use TikTok for
Awareness and brand familiarity
At the awareness stage, TikTok is not a place for direct betting messages. It is a way to enter the sports context where audience attention already exists.
A licensed operator can build presence before the start of a league, a derby weekend, or a major tournament through short creator-style videos, fan rituals, match anticipation, explainer formats, and local sports narratives.
The goal here is not to push someone straight to a bet. The goal is to make the brand familiar before the user starts searching for an app, comparing offers on affiliate sites, or deciding whether to install.
App installs and registrations
In regulated betting, campaign success does not depend only on the ad itself. A click is just the handoff to the next stage.
Then the most important part begins: the page must load quickly, verify the user's age correctly, show license information, terms of use, and responsible gambling messaging. At the same time, the registration path should not turn into a wall of legal friction.
This stage often determines whether the campaign can pass TikTok review, collect data for optimization, and move the user toward registration without unnecessary drop-off.
Education and event-based activations
TikTok works better with explanatory content than with direct promotional promises. For a betting brand, this can mean short videos explaining how the app works, which product features are available, how registration works, or how to use specific parts of the service. This format usually feels more natural on the platform and is easier to adapt across markets and languages.
Campaigns tied to specific sports events can also work well: the start of a tournament, the Champions League final, a major fight night, or a derby. At those moments, audience attention is already gathered around sport, and the brand can join the conversation more easily, not through an aggressive call to bet, but through a clear context, useful format, and local delivery.
Reactivation and creator work
Where local rules allow communication with existing customers, TikTok can be used for reactivation: for example, around a new season, a product update, or new app features.
But that communication still needs to be careful: in the local language, in a clear sports context, and without aggressive calls to bet.
Creator work is a separate use case. Here, it is important to account not only for TikTok's branded content rules, but also for the requirements of each specific country. If the format is allowed, sports-literate creators usually work better than broad lifestyle creators: people who can talk about matches, teams, tournaments, and fan culture in a way that feels natural to the audience.
Infrastructure and compliance: why access alone is not enough
For regulated betting advertisers, the main question is not "can we now launch on TikTok?" The real question is whether the brand is ready to launch from the point of view of documents, account setup, creatives, landing pages, and platform rules.
The Luckia/Performics launch in Spain became a notable case not simply because TikTok approved the campaign. The more important point is that the operator, agency, and platform spent months coordinating licensing, creatives, and landing page requirements before the campaign went live. In regulated categories, preparation often decides whether a launch happens at all.
This is where Evido comes in. As an official TikTok Marketing Partner with experience in regulated categories, including gambling, finance, crypto, and dating, Evido helps brands move from market opportunity to compliant launch. This includes preliminary assessment of specific countries, account setup and verification, work with TikTok requirements, creative pre-checks, landing page alignment, disclaimers and wording, and coordination of launches across multiple geographies.
There are no shortcuts in regulated TikTok advertising. If someone promises "guaranteed approval" or "launch without moderation", they either do not understand the rules or are presenting them incorrectly.
The real difference is preparation. One brand arrives with documents ready, landing pages checked, and creatives built with the rules in mind from the start. Another learns through rejections during the launch process. The first usually moves faster and builds a more stable relationship with the channel.
How to build TikTok into the acquisition system for a sports betting brand
Start with market checks, not creative
Before the first creative brief, narrow the list of 25 countries down to the markets where launch is actually possible.
Check three things: whether the operator has the required local license, whether local regulation allows the chosen type of communication, and whether the product meets TikTok's requirements.
At this stage, the job is not to come up with videos. The job is to understand where the brand can launch correctly. So the first output is not a creative concept, but a short list of markets where there is a legal, product, and platform basis for launch.
Define TikTok's role in the funnel, then move to creatives
App installs, website registrations, awareness, and reactivation can all work on TikTok. But they should not be mixed into one test.
First, decide what the launch is meant to do: introduce the audience to the brand, drive installs, collect registrations, or bring existing users back to the product. That decision shapes the campaign objective, landing page, video format, messaging, and metrics.
After that, creatives should be planned not as one universal video, but as a system of variants across languages, sports, markets, and audiences. Country-specific requirements also need to be accounted for separately: responsible gambling messages, warnings, wording restrictions, and other required information.
A creative for football audiences in Portugal cannot simply be translated and launched to a basketball audience in Lithuania. On TikTok, local language, specific sports context, audience-recognizable references, and natural delivery matter. That is what separates a video that can earn attention from one people simply scroll past.
Connect TikTok with the existing acquisition stack
TikTok should not live separately from the rest of the channel mix. It needs to fit into a broader system that already includes search, affiliate sites, sponsorships, CRM, and other advertising platforms.
Before launch, define how TikTok will connect with the rest of the funnel: which events are tracked, how the channel's contribution is measured, how to avoid reaching the same audiences several times, and which creative learnings can be transferred between channels.
It is better to solve this from day one than to come back to attribution and analytics a quarter later, when the data is already difficult to untangle.
Evaluate more than CPA and ROAS
The first launch in a new regulated channel is not only a performance test. It is also a test of whether the brand can work with the channel consistently.
Yes, CPA, ROAS, cost per install, and cost per registration matter. But for sports betting, other indicators are just as important: how consistently reviews are passed, what share of creatives get approved, how long campaigns take to learn, which markets produce fewer rejections, and where the post-click user journey does not break.
The first 90 days are best treated as a controlled test. Start by choosing 2-3 priority countries, checking licenses and TikTok requirements, preparing landing pages, defining the campaign objective, developing rule-aware creatives, and setting up the account and analytics.
Scale only when both layers hold: advertising metrics and platform-rule stability. Otherwise, you may get promising early numbers but quickly run into rejected creatives, unstable moderation, or infrastructure that is not ready.
What to do next
If you are considering TikTok as a growth channel for a sports betting brand, do not start with a media plan. Start with a readiness check.
Answer a few basic questions:
- Which countries from the list actually matter to the business?
- In which markets does the operator already have the required licenses?
- Which user journey should the campaign promote: awareness, app install, registration, or reactivation?
- Are the creatives, landing pages, and analytics ready for TikTok's requirements?
Those answers will quickly show what TikTok can be for the brand: a channel for a near-term test or a project that needs several months of preparation.
Evido can help run that assessment, evaluate requirements for specific countries, prepare the account, creatives, and landing pages, and clarify what will be needed for a compliant launch. This is not about a quick media pitch. It is about a sober assessment: whether you can launch now, in which markets, and under what conditions.
The opportunity for sports betting brands on TikTok already exists. But the brands that benefit from it will be the ones that arrive prepared.
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