Armenia’s National Assembly is set to vote on a bill that would require banks to freeze payments to illegal gambling platforms and compel internet service providers to block unlicensed websites.
The reforms propose amendments to the Law on Regulation of Gambling Activities and place the bulk of enforcement responsibility on the State Revenue Committee, which has held supervisory authority over the country’s gambling sector since January 2025, when a revised gaming law took effect. In addition to payment and website blocking, the bill would ban advertisements for illegal gambling platforms entirely. Licensed operators face new requirements too: all promotional material would need regulatory approval before going online.
What the Bill Proposes
The payment and ISP blocking measures are the centrepiece of the package. Banks would be required to identify and freeze transactions connected to unlicensed gambling operators. Internet service providers would face mandatory blocking orders against the same platforms. The dual-channel approach mirrors enforcement models applied in other European jurisdictions: Italy launched a digital firewall initiative in 2025 targeting illegal online gambling, and Romania’s gambling regulator blocked 30 unlicensed websites the same year.
For licensed operators, the advertising pre-approval requirement adds a compliance layer that currently does not exist in Armenian law. Operators would be unable to circulate promotional content until it has been reviewed and approved, shifting liability upstream and giving the State Revenue Committee oversight before material reaches consumers rather than after complaints arise.
Land-Based Changes and Lottery Rules
The bill extends into retail gambling. Players at land-based venues would only be permitted to purchase gaming chips using personal digital bank transfers, eliminating cash chip purchases. The requirement creates an identification trail for every land-based transaction, aligning retail play with the financial monitoring the package seeks to enforce online.
Lottery operators face a structural change: combined and draw-based lotteries would be required to set their prize fund at a minimum of 50% of total ticket sales. The obligation is designed to protect player value and reduce the risk of operators running lottery products with prize pools that do not reflect revenue collected.
Parliamentary Process
The initiative was proposed by Rafael Gevorkyan, Deputy Chairman of the State Revenue Committee. The Committee on Economic Affairs gave the bill a positive assessment. It now moves to the full National Assembly for debate and a vote. If the parliament approves it, the government will have 90 days to implement the reforms, including establishing a defined structure for bank transfer supervision and website blocking procedures.
That 90-day window matters. Armenia’s State Revenue Committee has been pursuing a separate real-time gambling monitoring system since early 2026, with a centralised operator due to build and run a digital platform tracking every wager as it is placed. The payment and ISP blocking framework proposed in this bill would operate alongside that monitoring infrastructure, creating overlapping enforcement tools.
A Broader Regulatory Push
The bill follows a series of regulatory moves that reflect sustained legislative pressure on Armenia’s gambling sector. The cost of non-compliance has risen across multiple European markets as regulators tighten enforcement frameworks, and Armenia is tracking the same direction. In April 2026, the country introduced a mandatory self-exclusion system for online gambling. Prior to that, the parliament doubled state duties on online casinos and bookmakers from April 2025 as part of earlier reform legislation.
The market context is modest but growing. The Blask Index projected Armenia’s gambling market at approximately $25m by January 2026, up from $23.8m in early 2025. With tax rates rising and licensing obligations expanding, the regulatory cost of operating in Armenia is increasing steadily. The question for the National Assembly vote is how quickly enforcement of the illegal market can catch up.
Source: Armenian National Assembly
