Ivan Kurochkin, 4H Agency partner
CIS regulatory harmonisation with European standards
In 2026, the The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region is expected to move toward regulatory harmonisation with European standards and established best practices. Regulators are expected to attract reputable operators, reduce regulatory fragmentation and increase institutional credibility. Harmonisation will also support cross-border cooperation, clearer compliance benchmarks and stronger investor confidence across the region. Several jurisdictions are already setting the pace.
Azerbaijan has taken visible steps by advancing plans to legalise land-based casinos in designated resort zones such as Sea Breeze, signalling a controlled and investment-oriented approach. Armenia is gradually reshaping its framework by developing legislation for testing laboratories, certification processes and centralised monitoring of online gambling activities, bringing its model closer to EU-style supervision.
Ukraine continues to position itself as the most transparent and structured market in the region, strengthening licensing, oversight and responsible gambling mechanisms while aligning regulatory processes with European compliance expectations. Uzbekistan, following the legalisation of online gambling in 2025, is expected to issue secondary legislation and technical regulations in 2026, filling gaps related to licensing conditions, IT infrastructure and operational controls.
Stricter compliance, higher costs and broader enforcement
A second major trend for 2026 will be the tightening of regulatory requirements, particularly in taxation, mandatory fees, advertising rules and enforcement mechanisms. Regulators are increasingly recognising payment providers and affiliates not as just service providers, but as active market stakeholders with direct compliance responsibilities. As a result, legalisation and market maturation are driving higher compliance thresholds for these participants, including reporting, monitoring, blocking duties, direct sanctions and in some cases separate authorisation regimes.
Kazakhstan stands out as a leading example, aggressively restricting cooperation between payment providers and offshore operators, imposing sanctions and introducing complex compliance requirements. Advertising controls are also becoming more restrictive, limiting exposure and increasing liability for non-compliant promotion. Georgia is moving in a similar direction, raising compliance standards across the ecosystem and tightening supervision of both operators and associated stakeholders. Ukraine, meanwhile, is expected to further centralise and formalise gambling-related payment flows, effectively increasing regulatory oversight and reducing grey market activity.
Responsible gambling ramps up
The third key prediction for 2026 is the continued development and real-world enforcement of responsible gambling frameworks across the CIS. While responsible gambling has long existed in legislation, regulators are increasingly focused on practical implementation and measurable impact, particularly in protecting vulnerable groups such as minors and individuals with gambling addiction.
Kazakhstan represents one of the strictest models, with extensive participation bans covering wide categories of citizens and robust enforcement mechanisms. Georgia continues to expand self-exclusion and participation restriction registers, maintaining high age thresholds and reinforcing a preventive approach rather than reactive enforcement. Ukraine is undergoing a particularly significant shift and expected to introduce responsible gambling tools into a market that historically lacked such safeguards, including player limits, awareness programs and centralised exclusion systems.
Dmitry Belianin, Menace founder
Creators will outgrow classic affiliates
Short-form creators, streamers and micro-influencers will push past traditional SEO-only affiliates as the real drivers of incremental first-time deposits.
Get ready for the change. The flow of traffic will look nothing like the tidy funnels of the past. It will be scattered across communities, boosted by viral loops that creators dream up for themselves.
The brands that win will be those that both embrace creators and treat them as more than human billboards. Traditional affiliates have been blank canvases for operators to deliver their message. To get the most out of creators, you must understand their appeal, and partner in authentic ways that actually generate value for the audience.
Trust the creators and give them the freedom and the tools to represent your brand authentically.
Product differentiation is back on the menu
For years, the industry has treated products as commodities.
Most operators run on similar stacks, offer similar games and differentiate almost entirely through marketing, bonuses and brand. That era is ending. Product is becoming the battleground again and the shift will reshape how we think about growth.
Over the next 12 months and beyond, I expect operators to begin consolidating fragmented product stacks. It’s the only way to build that unified, data-driven platform upon which you can innovate and improve the user experience.
Operators will find success taking that UX in lots of different directions. Online casinos will evolve into entertainment ecosystems, not just rows of slots. Community, missions and personalised feeds will become must-haves.
The operators that lean into this change will see their numbers move fastest. Retention strengthens when the experience is coherent and sticky. LTV rises when the platform becomes something players return to daily. Engagement climbs when users feel the product is adapting to them rather than the other way around.
I’d go as far as to say that the era of marketing-led differentiation will end in 2026. It doesn’t mean marketing won’t still be important, but product-led operators that treat the UX as their core engine will have a distinct advantage.
Market intelligence will get an AI glow-up
For years, entering a new market has meant navigating a fog of half-answers.
You ask around your network, call in some favours and schedule calls with local experts. Then you wait months for a market report that mostly rehashes anecdotes from someone’s experience four years ago. It is slow, imprecise and entirely out of step with how fast the igaming industry now moves.
But that’s changing.
This is the year operators, affiliates and suppliers stop guessing. Always-on market intelligence tools can process data at a scale no human team could match. They map opportunity in real time, break down product fit and reveal which features genuinely move the needle for players.
Instead of relying on hearsay and outdated PDFs, businesses can analyse billions of data points to decide where to launch, what to build and how to prioritise resources. Markets once ignored due to limited insight suddenly become visible and viable. This is an entirely new standard, and those who fully embrace it will accelerate in 2026.
The post Industry predictions for 2026: CIS changes and influencer marketing becomes king first appeared on EGR Intel.
4H Agency’s Ivan Kurochkin and Menace founder Dmitry Belianin give their predictions on emerging trends in 2026
The post Industry predictions for 2026: CIS changes and influencer marketing becomes king first appeared on EGR Intel.