Kazakhstan orders gambling operators to comply with direct reporting duties 

The government of Kazakhstan will require all gambling businesses to submit direct reports on the gambling activities and profiles of Kazakh citizens. 

The command was approved by the deputies of the Mazhilis (Parliament), who instructed for new gambling reporting duties to be added to the Tax Code of Kazakhstan.  

As reported by SBCCIS: “As dictated by the deputies of Parliament, owners of betting companies and totalizators must transmit information about the size of bets, losses and winnings to the tax authorities online.”

Kazakh-licensed gambling operators will be required to integrate hardware and software systems with the systems of the National Tax Authority to automatically transfer the necessary information of customer activities.

New rules will be imposed on national banks, which must provide information on processing the gambling transactions of citizens within a 10-day timeframe. Information must include ‘balance transfers’ and the authorisation of individual transactions with gambling operators.   

A radical overhaul of Kazakhstan gambling laws was ordered by President Kassym Tokayev, concerned by the “manifestation of gambling addiction amongst Kazakh youth and the public incurring debt due to addiction”.

The review has been undertaken by Vice Minister, Yerzhan Erkinbayev, who in September published draft amendments proposing that the current gambling age-limit be raised from 21 to 25.

Further proposals seek to extend criminal liability of gambling venues on underage infringements and providing illegal gambling services, to be directly prosecuted by Kazakhstan federal police force.

Since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan maintains no dedicated legislative framework to govern gambling disciplines.

At present, the only regulatory policy authorised in 2007, allowed for the provinces of Almaty and Akmola to launch state-owned casinos operating in ‘authorised gambling zones’. 

Since his intervention, it’s been reported that President Tokayev will review “62 recommendations related to gambling, lotteries and other betting activities”. Despite calling for urgent change, Tokayev has outlined no plans to establish a specific gambling law for Kazakhstan.