Kazakhstan shuts down Nomad Poker, an illegal online casino that processed 7.5 billion tenge in deposits

Kazakhstan’s Agency for Financial Monitoring (AFM) has shut down Nomad Poker, a large illegal platform built on the mobile Club GG Poker infrastructure. The operation matters for PSPs and acquiring teams because the money flow ran through drop accounts, foreign nationals, and a player base of more than 20,000 Kazakhstanis.

1. Nomad Poker processed 7.5 billion tenge ($159 million) in deposits before being taken down. That is the core number here: this was not a small side project, but a platform with enough volume to matter from a payments-risk perspective.
2. According to the AFM, the illegal business was run by Kazakh citizens from Georgia. To attract new users, the organizers used social media, messengers, and advertising tools, building an audience of more than 20,000 Kazakhstanis.
3. To move funds, the operators used accounts opened in the names of foreign nationals. In exchange for money — up to $400 — the organizers brought foreigners into Kazakhstan to set up drop accounts. The AFM identified more than 60 such accounts linked to the platform.
4. A court ordered the seizure of an apartment in Almaty, three cars, and 158 million tenge ($355,000) found on the identified drop accounts. For payment teams, that is the familiar pattern: user acquisition on the front end, account mule activity on the back end, and asset freezes once the structure is mapped.
5. In April 2026, the AFM in Shymkent also shut down the underground poker clubs Vendetta and AMG600L, which were linked to the Nomad network and had a turnover of $1.21 million.