Simon Zinger launches Calibri Law and Bluestar Partners
Simon Zinger has launched two businesses aimed at the gambling sector after leaving Entain in July 2026. He had served as group general counsel and chief customer care officer at the Ladbrokes parent company for roughly five and a half years, NEXT.io reported. The new ventures are legal practice Calibri Law and consultancy Bluestar Partners.
The two serve different purposes. Calibri will provide legal advice to companies, organizations and individuals in gambling, gaming, media and marketing services. Bluestar is built for work beyond legal questions, including compliance frameworks, customer protection and safer gambling practices, government relations and lobbying strategy, and crisis management.
Zinger kept the two practices separate by design. He told NEXT.io that the split reflects what clients in the sector now need.
“Increasingly, in the gambling and gaming industries, a strictly legal answer or approach isn’t enough to resolve the challenges we face or the opportunities we want to unlock,” Zinger said.
Zinger cited Brazil as a market where Bluestar’s broader approach could be useful, saying a purely legal strategy would be insufficient there. Calibri’s status as a legal practice means sensitive information clients share with it is protected by legal privilege and the associated confidentiality rules.
At Entain, Zinger sat on the group executive committee and played a prominent part in the company’s efforts against the black market. He was also part of the team, alongside CEO Stella David and then-chairman Barry Gibson, that secured an unconditional license for Entain’s business in Nevada.
His tenure also coincided with Entain’s deferred prosecution agreement with the Crown Prosecution Service, which followed HMRC investigations into the company’s historical operations in Turkey that predated his appointment. The 2023 agreement included a £585m penalty and requires Entain to maintain an enhanced compliance program until December 2027.
Asked what advice he would give operators on dealing with regulators, Zinger pointed to open communication and trust, adding that this can go hand in hand with differentiating a business and growing it. He thanked his former colleagues and said his time at Entain shaped his approach to legal advice, regulation, risk, customer care and commercial judgment.
