Armenia may block up to 40% of the population from gambling under draft amendments

Draft amendments to Armenia’s gambling law have reached a second reading in parliament, and the list of people who would be barred from legal gambling is broad enough to matter for any operator, PSP, or acquirer touching the market. The proposal, put forward by Hovik Sargsyan of the ruling Civil Contract faction, would tie access to gambling not just to age, but to income status, debt, and welfare eligibility.

1. Under the amendments, legal gambling would be off-limits to multiple categories of citizens: all recipients of state assistance, including low-income support, residents of state social housing, and people receiving government subsidies and benefits.
2. The same restriction would apply to debtors and bankrupts, including anyone going through bankruptcy proceedings, people already declared bankrupt, those with unpaid obligations to the state, and consumers whose outstanding loan burden exceeds 40% of their annual income.
3. The draft also excludes pension-age citizens without additional income, people registered with the National Center for Addiction Treatment, and participants in the self-exclusion list.
4. According to different estimates cited in the proposal, this set of categories could cover up to 40% of Armenia’s population. For payment providers, that is not a side note: a ruleset this broad changes who can legally fund accounts, place bets, and continue playing.
5. The same package would cap a citizen’s gambling participation at 20% of official annual income. The stated policy goal is to curb the sharp growth of iGaming, whose annual turnover has already exceeded $18 billion.