Former Entain general counsel Simon Zinger launches two London consultancies, Calibri Law and Bluestar Partners

Simon Zinger, a leading figure in Entain's campaign against unlicensed gambling advertising in football, has announced his next career move. He has set up two London-based consultancies, Calibri Law and Bluestar Partners, and is Managing Partner at both. He described the launch as a new chapter in a post on LinkedIn.

The two firms have separate remits. Calibri Law is a legal advisory practice, which Zinger says will draw on his experience of handling legal and compliance needs alongside operational challenges and business strategy. Bluestar Partners is a strategic advisory business with a wider scope, covering regulation, risks and opportunities. Its stated focus areas are regulatory support, government relations, crisis management, international business expansion, customer protection and sports integrity.

In his announcement, Zinger said that after many years inside globally regulated businesses he wanted to offer two practices grounded in practical judgment, commercial understanding and the realities of working under regulatory and reputational pressure.

Zinger spent the past five years at Entain, a FTSE 250 company that was formerly in the FTSE 100. He joined as Group General Counsel and later took on additional duties as Chief Customer Care Officer. His time there included Entain's outreach on unlicensed gambling advertising around football, particularly in the Premier League. That effort involved approaching the Independent Football Regulator, the UK Intellectual Property Office, the Premier League itself and some of its member clubs. His tenure also covered the 17.2 million pound penalty imposed by the Gambling Commission in 2023, which was the largest the regulator had issued at that time.

His move follows similar transitions by Andrew Rhodes and Tim Miller, the former Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of the Gambling Commission, who have also entered consultancy. That suggests regulatory experience is in strong demand in the advisory market.

The new firms will not be limited to gambling. Their websites list gambling, gaming, media, marketing services and adjacent businesses as target industries. Zinger's earlier career includes roles as Group General Counsel at Dentsu and Assistant General Counsel at Vivendi, and he began as a solicitor at two San Francisco law firms in the 1990s.