This text is an automatic translation from Русский. It was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Read original →
This text is an automatic translation from Русский. It was generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Read original →Russia's Finance Ministry has proposed legalizing online casinos to boost budget revenues. Experts warn of rising gambling addiction in the absence of a prevention system. An analysis of the risks and scale of the problem.
The Ministry of Finance has proposed legalizing online casinos in Russia to combat the illegal market and replenish the budget. Experts warn that without a system of prevention and treatment, this will lead to an increase in gambling addiction, which has already reached epidemic proportions. The legal bookmaking market already generates hundreds of billions of rubles, but the social consequences of expanding gambling may exceed the financial benefits.
The Ministry of Finance has proposed legalizing online casinos in Russia as a tool to combat the illegal market and bring cash flows "out of the shadows," reports Kommersant. The initiative sounds logical from a fiscal standpoint: the legal bookmaking market has already become a major industry with millions of players and hundreds of billions in gross revenue.
But from a social perspective, a different risk emerges—normalizing gambling "with one click" could lead to an increase in people with addiction. A specialist in addressing gambling addiction issues and author of the channel "Ludomania. There Is a Way Out!" Yury Shapkin notes:
"There can be no two opinions here: naturally, this will have a negative impact and lead to a substantial increase in people addicted to gambling. Right now, Russia is experiencing a real epidemic of ludomania"
Russia's gambling regulation model is built around the principle of "geographic isolation." The basic law 244-FZ restricted casinos and slot machine halls to gambling zones (while separately regulating bookmakers and totalizators), and the key provisions for the "zonal" model took effect on June 30, 2009. Today, the following are legal in Russia:
Yet online casinos in their current form remain outside the legal framework. It's precisely this segment that the Ministry of Finance proposes to "reassemble" under state control.
Deputy Chairman of the Board of the National Anti-Drug Union Alina Rudakova emphasizes that a dangerous duality emerges here. According to her, if we consider the initiative from an economic standpoint, then for the purpose of replenishing the budget, this story has merit. But the social consequences may prove heavier than the financial benefits:
"We are legitimizing this story precisely in people's consciousness. And we will see the fruits of this legalization several years down the line"
Legal forms of online entertainment have already been learned to account for and control (through the regulator's infrastructure and payment circuit). They, in turn, bring substantial money into the country's budget:
In parallel, the "zone-based" offline segment is also developing: from January through November 2025, four gambling zones received more than 1.7 million guests (in 2024, Russia's four operating gambling zones collectively received over 2.1 million guests).
However, the accessibility of online casinos poses a threat to society, as people can play without stopping for as long as they have the funds to do so. Dmitry Novostnoy, co-founder of a community for people with gambling disorder, notes that the very logic of expanding the gambling market carries serious risks. According to him, any form of gambling inevitably contributes to the growth of gaming addiction, and the key question is not about legalization itself, but about what countermeasures the state proposes. He emphasizes that legalization must be accompanied by a comprehensive system of protection and prevention, rather than being viewed exclusively as a way to replenish the budget at the expense of vulnerable population groups.
Another rationale for legalization is to eliminate the "gray market." Online casinos are registered in foreign jurisdictions (Curaçao, Costa Rica, Malta, and others). Their websites and apps are targeted at Russian users: Russian language, rubles, local payment methods, with access provided through VPNs, mobile apps, and Telegram bots. People make payments through electronic wallets and cryptocurrency, while having no 100% guarantee of receiving their winnings.
The main difficulty in discussing gaming addiction in Russia is that the state has almost no visibility into the scale of the problem. Official records are formed only through referrals to the psychiatric care system, and most gamblers simply never get there. Psychologist Anna Fedorova emphasizes that formally, the diagnosis of "gambling disorder" is virtually absent from statistics today:
"Today in Russia there are no statistics. Literally 5-6 people are undergoing psychiatric treatment or are registered with a diagnosis of gambling disorder"
According to her, the addiction exists on a mass scale but remains in the shadows because people don't seek help:
"All the other people who have gaming addiction and uncontrolled gambling, these people, as a rule, have not sought help from psychotherapists and psychiatrists"
Alina Rudakova agrees with this. She notes that the problem is widespread, but the system for tracking and support is virtually nonexistent:
"There are no official statistics, because as a rule, gambling addicts don't seek state assistance. There is no state assistance in this area. So where are they supposed to turn?"
The debate over legalizing online casinos is taking place at a time when the true scale of gambling addiction remains undiagnosed and unmonitored.
Even when someone recognizes the problem, the next question arises: where to go and how to get treatment. Experts agree that today's fight against gambling addiction in Russia is fragmented and often ineffective. Yury Shapkin believes the addiction is mistakenly being treated using the same approaches as alcoholism or drug addiction:
"Right now in Russia they're trying to 'treat' gambling addiction using the same methods as for drug addicts and alcoholics. In my view, this is fundamentally wrong"
He calls the practice of isolating gamblers in rehabilitation centers particularly questionable:
"Very often they propose isolating gambling addicts from society in rehab for several months. But my experience working with thousands of gamblers shows that isolation doesn't help"
Anna Fedorova also notes that state medicine has yet to develop standards for working with this diagnosis:
"I wouldn't say it's being treated at all. As of today, there are unfortunately no standards from the Ministry of Health"
In her assessment, even prohibitive measures produce no results when a person is in a state of compulsive gambling:
"If a gambler wants to play and their overvalued idea reaches the point of delusion, they won't stop, and no restriction will prevent them. They're ineffective, it seems to me, in every sense of the word"
Against this backdrop, legalizing online casinos without a parallel support system may only intensify the existing crisis.
One of the key measures typically discussed when legalizing gambling is raising the age threshold to 21. However, experts warn that a number in a passport alone offers no protection against addiction.
Yuri Shapkin points out that addiction forms much earlier, and the online environment makes restrictions easy to circumvent:
"Addiction can develop at any age, but the likelihood of it emerging is much higher precisely during adolescence: ages 16-20. Age restrictions are an absolutely insufficient measure, as they're very easily bypassed when playing online."
Rudakova adds that gambling addiction isn't tied to a specific age—the triggers vary, but the risk is universal. And Dmitry Novostnoy poses the question bluntly: if the illegal market continues to exist, age limits will only work on paper:
"How exactly will we prevent people under 21 from going to play at illegal establishments? This measure only works if there's no option to go to an illegal casino."
The question of prevention becomes central: if the state truly wants to control the market, it must learn to identify the problem before it leads to debt, family breakdown, and suicide. Yuri Shapkin emphasizes that the signs of addiction are well known, but there are almost no specialists capable of working with them:
"There are quite specific signs that a person has fallen into the trap of gambling. The appearance of debts (especially from microfinance organizations), loss of interest in studies and work, irritability, lying, and so on. The only problem is that specialists, by and large, don't exist right now."
Dmitry Novostnoy proposes at least a minimal concept of "built-in assistance," so that the industry itself would be obligated to show the way out—where gambling advertising is immediately accompanied by advertising for recovery services.
For now, prevention in Russia remains more an initiative of individual communities and psychologists than a state strategy.
Legalizing online casinos could bring additional revenue to the budget and bring part of the market out of the shadows. But experts warn: without a system for prevention and treatment, this would be a step that will only intensify the addiction problem that already exists.
Alina Rudakova believes the state needs to first create support mechanisms, and only then expand the market. Yury Shapkin is blunt: the country already has an addiction epidemic, and new legal casinos will only increase the number of victims.