Demand for illegal online casinos in Russia falls to 40%, lowest in eight years
The share of online casino brands operating in Russia’s shadow market fell to 40 per cent of total online gambling demand in June 2026, marking its lowest level since 2018. The figures come from analytics platform Blask, which assesses the market based on actual player search behaviour using Google Trends data and Yandex search statistics.
One likely contributing factor was the faster blocking of illegal websites: the State Duma, Russia’s supreme representative and legislative body, reduced the timeframe for adding such resources to the register of prohibited information from 5 days to 2 days back in April 2026. SiGMA News received an expanded version of the Blask analytics, with additional data, and is publishing the full picture of this turning point.
What the numbers show
In January 2026, according to Blask, the illegal segment accounted for 47.2 per cent of player interest. According to BAP (Brand’s Accumulated Power), which tracks a brand’s share of total market attention, licensed bookmakers accounted for 52.8 per cent of the market. By June 2026, the balance had reversed: the licensed segment grew to 60 per cent, while the offshore segment lost more than seven percentage points.
One clarification is necessary: in Russia, only bookmakers are licensed. Blask distinguishes between “offshore” and “licensed” brands not by where a company is registered but by whether it holds a licence specifically in Russia. Since online casinos cannot obtain a Russian licence under any circumstances, that entire market segment is classified as offshore by default in Blask’s data. In other words, the growth in the licensed market’s share shows a migration toward bookmakers, not the emergence of legal casinos.
The scale of the market
Blask tracked 185 brands in the Russian market in H1 2026, of which 178 remained active throughout the period. The CEB (Competitive Earning Baseline) for January to June, the modelled estimate of total market revenue, was estimated at $4.5bn, with a range of $2.9bn to $9.4bn.
Over the same period, Blask estimated that 26.2 million new players were acquired using its APS (Acquisition Power Score) model and a total search demand of 64.3 million (Blask Index, a metric measuring how frequently users search for a specific brand). The market leader was licensed bookmaker Fonbet, which accounted for between 21 per cent and 27 per cent of total market search demand, with more than twice the volume of its nearest competitor.
Official data also confirm the scale of the legal market: according to Russia’s Unified Gambling Regulator (ERAI), licensed bookmakers accepted 8.4 per cent more sports bets in 2025 than in the previous year. The total reached 1.9tn roubles (approximately $23.9bn), as reported by Kommersant, Russia’s leading business publication.
A long road: from 92 per cent to 40 per cent
The current shift has been years in the making. In January 2020, the licensed segment was estimated at $51.9m in monthly revenue, compared with $133m for the offshore segment, representing 28 per cent and 72 per cent of the market, respectively. By player interest, the gap was even wider: by the end of that year, almost all demand, as much as 92 per cent, was directed at offshore brands.
The offshore segment reached its peak in January 2024, when its monthly revenue as estimated by Blask approached $839m. The turning point occurred in February of that year, when the Bank of Russia revoked the licence of QIWI Bank, which had been considered the primary payment channel for the grey segment. Over the following year, the figure fell by almost 70 per cent, dropping to $263m by December, and in July 2024, the licensed segment surpassed the offshore segment for the first time in Blask’s observations.
In 2025, the offshore segment partially recovered, rising to $442m by August. However, the decline resumed as authorities tightened controls on “drop schemes”, in which stolen funds are channelled through individuals acting as money mules. By June 2026, the monthly revenue estimate for the segment had fallen to $316m, down 28 per cent from its peak. This is not the only recent development: sanctions against operators in Russia are being strengthened in parallel. From 1 September 2026, fines of up to 500,000 roubles (approximately $6,300) will apply to those who allow self-excluded users to gamble.
The result of a six-year journey, from 92 per cent offshore at the end of 2020 to the current figures, is clear. Both of Blask’s independent metrics as of June 2026 converge on the same point: 40 per cent by market share (BAP) and 41.7 per cent by revenue (CEB). This is telling: shifts in search demand typically precede changes in revenue, meaning the decline in interest in offshore brands suggests their revenue is likely to decline further.
Blask analysts report that with each successive round of tightening, this effect weakens: the decline is driven not by fading interest in casino gaming as a category, but by rising access costs in the offshore segment, due to payment channel blocking and the crackdown on drop schemes. As a result, the audience remaining in the grey zone becomes increasingly motivated and technically adept with each cycle.
Is there a limit to the offshore market?
Forty per cent is still an enormous grey zone, Blask analysts say, but not an unlimited one. There is a limit to how far the offshore market can shrink, though not at zero: as long as online casinos do not legally exist in Russia, all casino demand can only be met structurally by the offshore segment, since there is simply no legal alternative. Who exactly makes up that 40 per cent is not something Blask’s metrics reveal directly; the Blask Index measures the volume and structure of demand, not the user profile. However, the methodology does indicate something indirectly. Since the metric captures brand interest, meaning searches for a specific name rather than clicks on a random ad, it points to deliberate choice rather than chance:
“This is not the ‘stubbornness’ of this audience but the absence of an alternative: a legal online casino product does not exist in Russia, so a player who wants the casino experience specifically, rather than sports betting, physically cannot find a legal substitute and by definition remains in the offshore segment”
What to expect from the Russian market
Meanwhile, the land-based sector is growing independently of the online segment: casino attendance at Russia’s gambling zones rose 7 per cent in the first half of 2026. The debate over the legalisation of online casinos, with the Finance Ministry’s proposal for a 30 per cent tax on gross revenue, remains under consideration by the authorities. Until a decision is reached, the current market dynamics are likely to persist: players will continue to choose between offshore casinos and licensed bookmakers, rather than between offshore and legal casinos. The outcome of that debate will determine whether the current 40 per cent is the lowest level the grey market can realistically reach, or whether there is still room for it to shrink further.
This article was first published on the Russian SiGMA News page on 3 August 2026.
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