Google loses EU fight over YouTube gambling ads

• The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that Google is not automatically exempt from liability for gambling ads uploaded by paid YouTube partners.
• The case stems from a €750,000 ($854,250) fine imposed by Italy’s AGCOM in 2022 over gambling promotion on YouTube.
• The dispute now returns to Italy’s Consiglio di Stato (Council of State), which will rule on the merits using the CJEU’s guidance.

Google has lost a bid to overturn a €750,000 ($854,250) fine handed down by Italy’s communications regulator over gambling advertisements on YouTube, after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled the tech giant cannot automatically claim liability protection for content posted by its paid partners.

Liability test set

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its official ruling on 16 July 2026, in a dispute between Google and AGCOM, Italy’s media and communications regulator.

The case dates back to 2022, when AGCOM fined Google €750,000 over gambling ads that appeared on YouTube, uploaded by a content creator with whom Google had a commercial partnership. Google appealed, and Italy’s Consiglio di Stato (Council of State) referred the liability question to the CJEU in 2024.

Google argued that the hosting-provider exemption under the EU’s e-commerce rules shielded it from responsibility for content uploaded by third parties. The CJEU disagreed, drawing a specific line.

The CJEU said:

“Google may be held liable for the YouTube videos of a content creator with whom it has a commercial partnership.”

The court added:

“That is not the case where an operator reviews, for the purpose of concluding a commercial partnership contract, the main theme of a video channel, that channel’s most viewed videos or newest videos and the associated metadata.”

Liability protection, the judges said, applies only where a platform acts as a strictly technical, automated and passive intermediary, with no knowledge or control over the content it transmits or stores.

Case returns to Italy

A Google spokesperson said:

“We are carefully reviewing the text of the ruling.”

The Consiglio di Stato will now reassess the case using the CJEU’s interpretation, deciding whether the original €750,000 penalty stands.

Read narrowly, the distinction the court draws looks more like a due-diligence test than a content-moderation one. Checking a creator’s subscriber count or reviewing their most-watched videos before signing a partnership contract, on the CJEU’s reading, counts as active involvement rather than passive hosting. That strips away the intermediary defence Google relied on.

Ad screening scrutinised

In separate, unrelated proceedings, AGCOM has also fined X over gambling advertisements, and Meta is facing a complaint to the European Commission over unlicensed gambling ads in the Netherlands, after a study found Dutch age rule breaches on the platform. Both cases point in the same regulatory direction.

Google has separately pointed to heavy automated enforcement elsewhere, blocking 270 million gambling ads globally last year, and it opened an ad window for licensed Alberta operators ahead of that market’s launch.

Platforms running creator monetisation or partnership programmes now have clearer precedent for when screening steps can amount to control, though the ruling stops short of a comprehensive test covering every partnership model.

Given the patchwork of national gambling advertising rules across the EU, this looks like a natural area for regulators to test the reasoning next. Operators buying reach through paid creator deals in the bloc should expect platforms to tighten, not loosen, the compliance checks built into those contracts.