Russia’s State Duma plans 2026 law against casino streamers, with fines rising 200-fold

The Russian State Duma is planning to pass a bill in autumn 2026 that would prohibit streamers from promoting online casinos. For PSPs and other high-risk payment providers, the practical point is simple: Russia is moving from a vague loophole to a much wider enforcement perimeter, with materially higher penalties and account-blocking obligations.

1. The bill is meant to close a legal gap that has allowed bloggers to stream gambling without the content being formally treated as advertising. According to the source, the draft would cover any promotion of a “destructive agenda,” including posts, streams, and the distribution of information in any form.
2. The penalty regime would rise sharply: fines would increase to 500,000 rubles for individuals and 7 million for organizations, compared with the current 1,500 rubles. That is a 200-fold jump on paper, which is the sort of number compliance teams notice even before the lawyers do.
3. The draft also says social networks would be required to block profiles of bloggers who keep advertising casinos. For operators and their payment partners, that means promotional channels can be cut off at the platform level, not just through payment restrictions or ad takedowns.
4. Deputy Meteliev said illegal platforms sponsor the Ukrainian Armed Forces and remove more than 1 trillion rubles from Russia every year. The source does not provide further detail on that claim, but it is part of the political framing behind the bill.
5. For industry context, the Center for Combating Gambling Addiction says Russia has 2-2.8 million addicted people and 15-18 million gambling participants. The source also says that from 1 September any Russian can place themselves in a self-exclusion register, after which legal operators must restrict access.

The payment angle here is not just the streamer economy. When a jurisdiction starts combining content restrictions, platform blocking, self-exclusion, and sharply higher fines, the risk discussion for casino traffic becomes less about marketing creativity and more about how long any acquisition channel stays usable.