The Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) of Kazakhstan is considering criminal penalties for social media influencers who promote online gambling. The move comes after repeated violations of the country’s advertising regulations. These rules prohibit the promotion of online casinos and betting services.
FMA disclosed that it identified 34 influencers in 2025 alone for advertising gambling services on social media. The agency warned that the current penalties fail to restrain the practice, even though it has fined 11 influencers administratively. The main issue is that the revenue from these promotions often exceeds the fines, creating little deterrent for repeat offenders.
The FMA is exploring whether to categorize such promotional activities as aiding and abetting illegal gambling. If it adopts this interpretation, the move could trigger criminal sanctions similar to those already applied to promoters of financial pyramid schemes under Kazakhstani law.
Kazakhstan introduced a law that strictly prohibits public advertising of online casinos, bookmakers, and betting pools in the previous year. This includes a restriction on such promotions in media, outdoor advertising, and even in films or videos. In spite these legal provisions, online gambling activities, specifically those operated by international networks, keep on thriving, circumventing local regulations.
According to Interfax-Kazakhstan, the FMA has reported strong results in fighting illegal gambling, dismantling more than 200 operations since 2022. Moreover, authorities have held 224 individuals criminally liable for their involvement in these illegal activities. Yet, the FMA emphasizes that foreign online gambling platforms keep the most significant threat, as many of these services operate beyond the reach of local authorities.
The agency has responded by blocking more than 17,000 online links in the current year. Most of these are mirror sites for international gambling platforms. Certain domestic payment providers still facilitate transactions linked to these illicit services. Despite ongoing efforts, this has prompted the FMA to intensify its investigations into these intermediaries.
