The state counts the bets. But who checks the counter?
12-09-2026 14:48 Politics
1in.am On September 11, the Armenian government established new regulations for the gaming business. Organizers of gambling and online games, as well as bookmakers, are required to submit monthly reports to the State Revenue Committee in a unified format. The goal is continuous, risk-based oversight, transparency, and the creation of a comparable database of data.
The step is correct. However, it is less revolutionary than it seems. Gaming companies were already submitting monthly reports on financial flows and conducting annual financial reports through independent audits. The new regulation mainly aims to make that information unified and comparable.
However, the problem in Armenia has long ceased to be just about the format of reports. The scale of the gaming business has itself become an issue of economic policy.
In 2025, approximately 7.5 trillion drams were wagered in online gambling in Armenia, and around 185 billion drams in casinos. For comparison, in 2017, the volume of online bets was about 0.2 trillion drams. In eight years, it has increased more than 35 times.
However, these figures need to be interpreted correctly. The 7.5 trillion drams is not the economic output created by the sector; the same amount can circulate multiple times—turning from a bet into a win and then back into a bet. For this reason, the number raises a more interesting question: what real economic value remains in Armenia from this enormous financial movement?
Yes, there are taxes, jobs, well-paid technology specialists, software developments, and exported services. Ignoring this would be as wrong as considering gaming turnover as economic growth. SoftConstruct, associated with the VBET gaming ecosystem, paid about 23.8 billion drams in taxes in 2025 and was the tenth largest taxpayer in Armenia. In the first quarter of 2026, it was already the fifth, with around 8 billion drams in taxes.
This is a serious taxpayer, but being a large taxpayer is not the same as creating equivalent added value for the economy.
From a copper mine, there remains exported raw material; from a factory, there is product; from a technology company, there is knowledge and intellectual property; from energy investment, there is infrastructure. When assessing the economic balance of the gaming business, the state must consider not only how much tax it has received but also how much household income has flowed into the gaming system, how much debt has arisen, how much consumption or savings has been displaced, and what social costs remain for the state.
This is where the first limit of the new regulation lies.
A report is not oversight. It is the raw material for oversight.
If the state receives the information once a month that is presented by the very company being monitored, it sees the picture presented by the company. Real oversight begins where that picture can be cross-referenced with banking flows, player accounts, individual bets, tax data, payment systems, and the organizer's initial digital data.
This distinction is particularly important for a large and internationally operating gaming business like "Vivaro," whose financial, technological, and corporate ties are not limited to the Armenian market.
A monthly report is a tool for yesterday's economy for a business that operates at the speed of seconds. Millions of transactions—entries, exits, bonuses, cancellations, transfers—can occur in a month. The total at the end of the month may be mathematically correct and tell nothing about a specific suspicious chain.
Armenia has already planned a stronger tool. The permanent monitoring system created by the "Law on the Regulation of Gaming Activities" should have real-time access to data on gaming products, game symbols, winnings, and gaming events within the organizers' systems. In August 2026, the government also appointed a regulatory operator.
In one case, the state asks, "Tell me what you did this month." In the other case, the state can see for itself what is happening.
But even that is not the whole answer.
A modern large gaming group is not a company with a single cash register. It can have technology companies, software providers, brands, payment intermediaries, and interconnected structures registered in different countries. If the Armenian regulator only sees the licensed organizer in Armenia but does not fully see the transactions with interconnected companies, payments for services, and cross-border financial flows, it may see the tree in detail without seeing the forest.
Therefore, a second line of defense is necessary—disclosure of real beneficiaries and related parties' transactions, separate classification of foreign flows, justification of large and unusual transactions, verification of the origin of funds, and systematic data exchange between the SRC, financial intelligence, and banking oversight.
And here, there is also a political issue.
When the gaming business is simply a business, the state's relationship with it is fiscal and regulatory. When the same economic framework enters the visible proximity of political power, the standard of oversight should not diminish but rather increase. The state must be able to show that the report of a company close to power is verified with the same rigor as that of a company with no relationship to power.
The most dangerous loophole in a democratic state is sometimes not in the law—it is in the discretion of the law's enforcer.
The gaming economy in Armenia has already reached such dimensions that the issue is not just about combating gambling addiction. The question is what kind of economy we are building. If the volume of bets in one sector is counted in trillions, and the companies in that sector rise to the top ten largest taxpayers in the country, the state must measure not only the taxes they pay but also their net economic and social output.
Because the size of the economy is not just about the speed of money movement. It is also important what remains after that movement.
Monthly reports will show the numbers. Real-time monitoring will show the transactions. But a good regulator must be able to answer the larger question: what does Armenia gain from this turnover reaching trillions—besides taxes—and what price does it pay for it?
The answer to that question will not fit in a single line of any report.
* This text was automatically translated by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
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