Russian demand for illegal online casinos falls to its lowest level since 2018, Blask says

The share of offshore online-casino brands in Russia’s online gambling demand fell to 40% in June, according to analytics platform Blask, which tracks players’ search demand. For PSPs and acquirers, the part that matters is obvious: when a shadow segment loses traffic and payment access, the money tends to follow.

1. Blask says this is the lowest level for illegal online-casino brands since 2018. In January 2026, the unlicensed segment accounted for 47% of total player interest; by June, that had dropped to 40%.
2. The legal bookmakers’ share moved the other way. It stood at 52.8% in January and rose to 60% in June, which means the regulated side kept taking demand as the gray market lost it.
3. The peak for illegal gambling during Blask’s observation period came in January 2024, when monthly market volume reached $839 million. After the license withdrawal from QIWI Bank, which removed a key payment channel for the gray segment, that figure fell by almost 70% year on year to $263 million in December.
4. Blask says the legal bookmaker segment overtook the shadow market for the first time in July 2024. The illegal market then recovered to $442 million in August last year, but tighter control over “drop” schemes (the splitting and cash-out of stolen funds) pushed the estimate back down to $316 million in monthly revenue by June 2026.
5. BetBoom and Olimpbet declined to comment, and Fonbet did not respond to Kommersant. The operational takeaway is straightforward: when regulators and banks tighten around payment rails and mule-account schemes, the offshore side does not just become harder to monetize; it can also lose search demand, which is often the first thing payment teams notice before the volume disappears.