Gambling Off the Grid

Starting September 1, Russians will be able to independently ban themselves from participating in gambling for a minimum of one year. The mechanism is designed to block access to legal bookmakers, totalizators, casinos, and slot machine halls while simultaneously shielding individuals from gambling advertising by licensed operators. The measure appears to be a logical response to rising gambling addiction, though its effectiveness is limited to the legal market. If someone switches to an illegal platform after self-exclusion, the state registry can no longer directly stop them.

Two trillion rubles in demand

According to Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov, Russians annually spend around 2 trillion rubles with betting operators. At the same time, according to the Finance Ministry's estimates, the bookmaking segment is approximately 90% "whitewashed." In other words, most bets already go through regulated companies where the state can monitor market participants, money flows, and compliance with established rules.

But these statistics don't capture the full demand for gambling. According to estimates by the ANO "Center for Combating Gambling Addiction," in 2026 approximately 9 million Russians, or more than 6% of the country's population, regularly play at online casinos or place bets. Around 150,000 people may be in severe stages of addiction and carry substantial debts. These estimates can't be equated with official government statistics—there are none. But they help illustrate the scale of the group for whom simply restricting access to legal operators may prove insufficient.

The self-exclusion mechanism is designed primarily for those who want to stop and are ready to use such a tool. Applications can be submitted through Gosuslugi or multifunctional centers, with a minimum period of 12 months that cannot be revoked early. Once added to the registry, legal operators will be unable to accept bets or money from the person, provide access to their gaming account, or issue chips and tokens at casinos. Information in the registry will be updated every 12 hours.

For the market, this means the emergence of a clear barrier: operators must verify whether a person has the right to gamble before accepting their bet. For the player themselves, such a barrier can provide a useful pause, especially if the decision is made before the addiction becomes severe.

A ban that actually works?

That self-exclusion can help at least some players is demonstrated by data from the Center for Combating Gambling Addiction itself. In a survey conducted in August of this year among 326 people seeking help for addiction, 27% stated that having the option to impose a ban earlier would have helped them stop or reduce their gambling.

This is an important finding because it demonstrates the practical value of the mechanism. A person isn't always capable of limiting themselves independently at the moment when they've already decided to quit gambling. Self-exclusion moves that decision to an earlier point and creates an external constraint that cannot be lifted on impulse.

Moreover, the new procedure affects more than just the bets themselves. Gambling operators and those acting on their behalf are prohibited from directing advertising to people in the registry. Gaming websites and gambling establishments must also display QR codes for submitting self-exclusion requests. 

However, this is precisely where the new mechanism's reach ends. It assumes the player remains within a system that the state can control. No such connection exists with illegal operators.

57% ready to seek workarounds

In the same survey, 57% of respondents said they would find a way to circumvent self-exclusion and continue gambling. Another 16% believe this measure alone is insufficient. This isn't a study of the entire Russian audience and doesn't allow us to claim that most players would act this way. But the sample is interesting because it includes people already facing gambling addiction.

For such a person, having their account closed at a legal bookmaker doesn't necessarily mean stopping gambling. They may seek out illegal online casinos, switch to mirror sites, use alternative payment methods, or attempt to place bets through third parties. In this case, what changes isn't the desire to gamble, but only the platform where it's realized.

This reveals a fundamental difference between the legal and illegal markets. In the first case, the state can establish a rule and compel operators to comply. In the second, it must first locate the platform, restrict access to it, and then monitor the emergence of new addresses. Self-exclusion doesn't solve this problem because it's tied to a specific individual within a regulated system, not to all internet access to gambling.

This is especially important against the backdrop of existing work to block illegal content. Between January and May 2025, Roskomnadzor removed or restricted access to 315,700 unlawful internet materials. Nearly a third of this volume—94,200 items—was related to gambling. By the end of 2025, the total number of restricted materials across all categories rose to 1.289 million, up 59% from the previous year. However, the agency has not publicly disclosed comparable annual breakdowns for gambling content. Data for 2026 has not yet been published either.

Advertising remains outside the registry

Advertising presents a separate problem. The law prohibits licensed operators from sending promotional messages to anyone who has enrolled in self-exclusion. But a ban on a licensed bookmaker does not automatically extend to all advertising that a user encounters online.

One example is pirate sites. According to research by F6, Russia's online piracy market in 2025 was valued at $34.4 million versus $36.4 million the year before—a decline of 5.5%. Yet 11% of ad impressions on pirate sites came from illegal casinos and bookmakers, while 89% came from legitimate brands.

This does not mean every user of a pirate site receives ads for illegal casinos. But the very existence of such a channel matters when assessing the effectiveness of self-exclusion. A person may opt out of playing on a legal service while continuing to receive offers from operators that do not recognize the Russian registry.

The F6 study shows that illegal casinos and bookmakers no longer dominate the advertising market on such sites. But the remaining 11% represents precisely the segment that sits outside the legal advertising framework. For someone already attempting to circumvent restrictions, the presence of such a channel may carry more weight than its share of total advertising. Therefore, the effectiveness of self-exclusion will depend not only on how the registry itself functions, but also on how quickly the state can shut down external routes.

Where self-exclusion ends

The new mechanism has an obvious advantage: for the first time, a person gets a formal opportunity to establish a barrier in advance between themselves and the legal gambling market. If they genuinely want to stop gambling, this can give them time to stay away from betting and avoid receiving offers from licensed operators. 

But for the most vulnerable group, the risk lies further down the road. If 57% of respondents believe they would find a way around the ban, then the problem already extends beyond access to a specific bookmaker. We're talking about the behavior of a person who continues seeking opportunities to gamble after restrictions are imposed.

That's why self-exclusion should be viewed not as a standalone method of combating gambling addiction, but as one element of a system. Its purpose is to close off the legal channel for someone who has decided to stop. The next level is to make the illegal channel less accessible and less attractive. This requires blocking casinos and mirror sites, fighting their advertising, and controlling payment routes.

Otherwise, you end up with a situation where the state effectively closes the entrance to the legal market but doesn't fully control the exit from it. The gambler ends up in the registry, the bookmaker loses the right to accept their bets, but the desire to gamble itself doesn't disappear. If an illegal platform remains nearby, the ban becomes not the end of gambling, but a change of route.