The government of Kazakhstan says banks have blocked more than $21 million in transactions linked to illegal casino platforms over six months.
Prime Minister Oljas Bektenov said the blocks were all made by “second-tier banks” between October 2025 and March 2026. During this period, the banks canceled some 402,000 gambling-related payment transactions.
Bektenov was speaking during a parliamentary inquiry on measures to combat gambling addiction and illegal betting, the Kazakh media outlet Tengri News reported.
The Prime Minister told lawmakers the government has also compiled a list of blacklisted foreign online casino operators.
The list also includes 110 popular e-pay providers, Bektenov said. He said that all transfers to and from these platforms are now blocked.
Kazakhstan Casino Scrutiny Intensifies
The Prime Minister said that, since the beginning of 2026, law enforcement agencies have also launched 15 criminal cases and identified 40 illegal online casino operators.
He added that police have arrested 11 executives and employees of financial institutions “who assisted in the operation of illegal casinos.”
Bektenov confirmed that police have taken down several networks of suspected card mules who helped launder money for online casinos.
The group of banks has blocked a total of 1,144 bank accounts linked to mules, and police have launched 10 pre-trial investigations.
Bektenov went on to claim that the nation’s new Unified System for Accounting of Betting and Gambling Games has already blocked 135,000 people from placing bets on online platforms.
The system launched in March this year and automatically checks whether a person is eligible to gamble online.
Citizens with gambling addiction-related problems can voluntarily add themselves to the system. The government also has the power to add at-risk individuals to the same registry.
The vast majority of the 116,000 people the system blocked were in significant debt. The system also blocked 15,000 people who had previously opted into self-exclusion programs.
The state thinks approximately half a million Kazakh citizens “regularly” gamble, 15,000 of whom may suffer from gambling addiction.
New Counselling Programs
The government also began offering gambling addiction counseling at health clinics in early 2024.
The Prime Minister urged people who feel they cannot control their gambling to come forward and use these resources.
“Citizens who seek consultation are not placed on any kind of medical register,” Bektenov said. “This means they are not denied the opportunity to find employment, gain a place at a university, or obtain a driver’s license.”
Thus far, fewer than 200 people have come forward to use these counseling services. Fewer than a dozen applied to use them in the first quarter of 2026.
In recent months, the government has moved to ban bookmakers’ advertisements, raise the gambling age limit to 21, and ban civil servants from betting online.
It has also blocked active-duty military personnel and convicted criminals from placing bets and banned some 62,000 illegal gambling sites.
Bektenov said that the government would work with lawmakers to “continue to improve measures to combat gambling addiction and illegal gambling.”
Earlier this month, the lawmaker Nurlan Auesbayev proposed temporarily deferring bank loans for people diagnosed with gambling addiction.
Auesbayev said gambling addiction was resulting in “colossal financial losses” in Kazakhstan and leaving many families “broken.”
However, the state continues to push ahead with plans to open new casinos for foreign-passport holders only in several parts of the country.
