The Russian government is considering legalising online casino business to boost state revenues, reported Kommersant, a business newspaper in the country, in a Tuesday story, citing people familiar with the matter.
The development was cited by an English-language news outlet outside the country, the Moscow Times.
It said, per Kommersant, that Anton Siluanov, Russia’s finance minister, had made the proposal in a letter he sent to the country’s leader, President Vladimir Putin.
The Moscow Times reported that online casinos had been illegal in Russia since 2009, but that the government was looking for new sources of revenue amid the costs of its war against Ukraine.
The English-language outlet cited Finance Ministry estimates that total turnover in Russia’s legal betting market – licensed bookmakers and totalisators pemitted to operate online – reached RUB1.7 trillion (circa US$22.3 billion at current rates) in 2024.
The size of the illegal online gambling market in the Russian Federation is estimated at RUB3 trillion, “with roughly 100 illicit platforms in operation,” said the Moscow Times.
Land-based casino operations have been reported as continuing in the Primorye Integrated Entertainment Zone (IEZ) in the Pacific Far East of the country, near Vladivostok.
In June it was reported that the Shambala casino resort – one of two land-based gaming venues operating in the IEZ – was seeing construction of its Phase 2, and was due to reach “full capacity” in 2028.
In July, Summit Ascent Holdings Ltd reported that the other casino complex running in the IEZ – Tigre de Cristal – was back to profit as it focused on the Russia domestic mass market.
In March last year, Hong Kong-listed casino operator NagaCorp Ltd recognised a non-cash impairment loss of US$89.1 million on the group’s casino construction project at Primorye. In March 2022, the firm had said it was suspending building work on it.
