Writer Ustinovich: 'Legalizing Online Casinos Is Opening Pandora's Box'

— How do you assess the potential impact of legalizing online casinos on the prevalence of gambling addiction in Russia?

— The impact will be very negative. Right now, access to casinos in Russia is severely limited. If online casinos become legal, everyone will start gambling. Yes, it's a blow to illegal business, but in terms of gambling accessibility, millions of people will get involved, including those who never gambled before and never needed betting.

Moreover, advertising will inevitably appear: ambassadors, athletes, entertainers — all those who will convince people that casinos are normal and even beneficial. We've already seen this with sports betting.

If you look at the regulatory draft, gambling addiction prevention is proposed to be delegated to the unified gambling regulator — ERAI. But ERAI hasn't been able to launch a hotline for two years now. Two years.

Their entire website consists of tests that any gambling addict can find online. Everything else is promises. Worldwide, gambling addiction prevention is handled by non-profit organizations or medical communities, but here they propose leaving it to the casinos themselves. This looks, to put it mildly, strange.

— What's the current situation with gambling addiction in Russia? Is there any statistics on it from recent years?

— There are essentially no comprehensive statistics on gambling addiction in Russia.

At one roundtable in the State Duma, a Ministry of Health representative stated outright that such statistics only began being collected in the early 2020s. Before that, there was simply no systematic work on the problem.

If we rely on international practice, it shows the following: approximately 5% of gamblers are potentially vulnerable, 3.5% risk developing a mild form of gambling addiction, about 1% — moderate, and roughly 0.5% — severe.

These are scientifically validated estimates used in international practice. But Russia still lacks even a basic understanding of the scale of the problem.

— How is gambling addiction currently treated in Russia? How effective are existing measures?

— In Russia, it's mainly rehabilitation centers of varying quality — from outright criminal to genuinely professional. There are private clinics and state-run ones.

But getting real help from the state is practically only possible in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In most regions, it's almost impossible.

There's also a very important nuance. Starting in 2026, pathological gambling addiction (diagnosis F63.0) has been included in the list of conditions that disqualify you from getting a driver's license.

Meanwhile, the procedure for being removed from the clinical registry for this diagnosis is virtually non-existent. So a person who goes to a state clinic will receive an F63.0 diagnosis and automatically lose the ability to drive. Under these conditions, no one will seek official treatment. People either won't seek help or will only get treatment privately.

— Do you consider the 21+ age restriction a sufficient protective measure?

— According to all research, brain cortex development is completed around age 23, when personality is fully formed. Getting young people involved in addictions before this age is extremely undesirable — they receive a certain personality 'programming' at a subconscious level.

On one hand, it's good that there's even been a thought to raise the age to 21, because for bookmakers it's currently 18.

But on the other hand, it's not enough. Yes, addiction can develop in anyone. And considering that Russia has no gambling addiction prevention program at all, not even a concept for such a program, the situation looks extremely alarming.

— Is it possible to build a system for early detection of gambling addiction? If so, how?

— Theoretically — yes. But this requires political will from the state, money, and long-term research.

It's very important that gambling platforms share data on behavioral factors of problem gamblers — they know more about such people than anyone. Given the development of artificial intelligence, which can analyze behavioral patterns, this is technically feasible.

But the key question is — who will do this, who will finance it, and who benefits from it. Right now, it benefits no one. Which means it most likely won't happen.

— What's your overall conclusion from what's happening?

— My personal opinion: the state is opening Pandora's box.

Legal online casinos with advertising, ambassadors, and self-regulation, where the operator itself is responsible for addiction prevention — this is a model that doesn't exist anywhere in the world.

Everywhere there's a separation between the gambling industry and independent medical or public institutions. We don't have this — and apparently they're not planning to create it. Even the Ministry of Health is effectively not being engaged on this issue.

This means a growing number of gambling addicts and, in the long run, serious social consequences. The money extracted through gambling doesn't come from nowhere — it's taken from society.

And mass cultivation of a parasitic lifestyle through gambling will lead to societal degradation in the long term.