The Gambling Loophole Enriching Insiders
They banned gambling, except the one kind that enriches a close friend.
Hovik lays out the gambling saga as a case study in how a reform can enrich the very insiders it claims to constrain. Legislation presented by Alen Simonyan banned physical gambling in Armenia, but left a loophole wide open: online gambling could stay. The leading online operator, Vivarobet, happens to be tied to a close friend and benefactor. With physical locations shut down, players were driven online, concentrating the money with the very people connected to the official who shaped the law.
The scale is what makes the moment travel. Hovik cites a figure he heard of 7 trillion dram, roughly 15 billion dollars, for the industry, and estimates connected oligarchs grow richer by about a billion dollars a year from gambling alone. He draws a pointed comparison: for twenty years, critics complained about Robert Kocharyan’s reported 2 billion dollars, while gambling-linked figures tied to the current government are said to pull in roughly that much every single year. The reform is presented to the public as saving people from gambling when, the hosts argue, it simply redirected the flow.
For viewers following Armenian news and the economy under Civil Contract, this is a concrete, repeatable corruption story that does not require specialist knowledge. A ban that looks virtuous on the surface, a loophole that benefits a named operator, and a number big enough to shock. It fits the episode’s broader thread on single-source contracts, favoritism, and public spending, and it invites the audience to ask who actually benefits when the government claims to be cleaning things up.
Transcript
Hovik Manucharyan: One thing that we didn't get to cover a lot was this whole saga between Hayk Sargsyan and Alen Simonyan if you remember Alen Simonyan essentially presented to the Armenian parliament and they passed legislation to disallow gambling in Armenia
Asbed Bedrossian: Hmm.
Hovik Manucharyan: except the loophole was that online gambling could stay and the number one online gambling operator in Armenia is Alen Simonyan's very close friend and benefactor, close friend and benefactor, Vivarobet, basically that company. And now as a result, they closed down all the physical gambling locations or most of them. And everyone now has been driven to gamble online and enrich, Alen Simonyan's friends. And, I mean, the gambling, I think, industry in Armenia is, I think I heard the number of 7 trillion dram, $15 billion, like, I
Asbed Bedrossian: Regardless, what a waste.
Hovik Manucharyan: what I heard.
Asbed Bedrossian: Jesus.
Hovik Manucharyan: And this government is acting like they saved people from gambling, where they just enabled their, you know, oligarchs to get richer. I mean, these oligarchs are getting richer by a billion dollars every year.