Armenia will restrict access to online gambling for several socially vulnerable groups. The National Assembly has adopted in its second and final reading amendments to the Law on the Regulation of Gaming Activities authored by Civil Contract faction lawmaker Hayk Sargsyan.

Under the new rules, participation in online games of chance will be prohibited for citizens receiving state subsidies, including support for mortgage loans, tuition fees, agricultural loans and similar programs. The restrictions will also apply to social benefit recipients, pensioners whose only income is their pension, individuals involved in bankruptcy proceedings, and people with a high debt burden—defined as those spending more than 40% of their annual income on loan repayments, according to Sputnik Armenia.

Citizens who are not prohibited from participating in online gambling will also face new limits. The total amount of their wagers may not exceed 20% of their annual income.

In addition, all domestic and foreign online casino platforms operating in Armenia will be required to place a clearly visible automatic self-exclusion button within their interfaces. Through this feature, users who suffer from gambling addiction or recognize the risk of addiction will be able to block their accounts with a single action not only on a specific platform but across all gambling platforms operating in the country.

It was also noted that foreign platforms failing to comply with Armenian legal requirements will be blocked within Armenia.

According to the explanatory note attached to the bill, the volume of bets placed by Armenian residents on online gambling platforms increased more than 35-fold between 2017 and 2025, reaching 7.41 trillion drams.

The document also notes that the total volume of online bets generally exceeds the amount of actual money deposited by several times because the same funds can be used repeatedly for multiple wagers. Even under more conservative estimates, however, the sums involved remain significant, amounting to roughly $2 billion.

At the same time, taxes paid by gambling companies account for about 1% of total state budget revenues.

Existing restrictions already prohibited online gambling for people under 21, public servants and military personnel.

Under previous regulations, placing bets through online casinos was already prohibited for individuals under the age of 21, as well as for public officials and members of the armed forces.