Kazakhstan Adds Criminal Justice Checks to Betting Payment Rules

The changes appear in Order No. 198, signed on October 9 and registered four days later. The gambling regulator published the document on its website on October 27.

Criminal Justice Records Enter the Screening Process

A check against the Interior Ministry’s criminal justice database is included in the revised procedure for establishing a business relationship with a player. The provision concerns people sentenced to restriction of liberty and those serving suspended sentences. The UAS operator or a contracted payment company must also check other grounds for exclusion.

The procedure includes several existing screening requirements:

• Age and restrictions on gambling participation;
• Entries in the Unified Register of Debtors;
• Terrorism, extremism and weapons proliferation financing lists.

Electronic-money transactions and payouts must be refused where the specified restrictions apply.

Kazakhstan had already barred several of these groups from gambling. Order No. 198 does not introduce those prohibitions. It changes the procedure used to identify affected players before payments are processed.

Bailiff Access Is Not Open-Ended

The order also changes which UAS records can be supplied to bailiffs. Requests are handled through Kazakhstan’s automated enforcement system.

Not every record is covered. The amended Section 22 points to four paragraphs of Section 16, setting a defined scope for the information that can be provided.

Remote identification is addressed elsewhere in the same order. It involves identity details and photographs, with verification through Kazakhstan’s digital identification infrastructure. Contracted financial monitoring entities may perform the checks.