Introduction: with the development of market relations in our country, certain types of business activities that are of interest not only among businessmen, but also in the criminal environment, have demanded closer scrutiny from the state. One of these types of entrepreneurship - the gambling business in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries became an area of economic and common crime. The article attempts to analyze the formation and development of responsibility for the illegal organization and (or) conduct of gambling in modern Russian criminal legislation. Materials and Methods: dialectical, formal-logical and other general scientific research methods were used, as well as special legal methods: comparative legal, formal legal and statistical methods. Results: on the basis of the analysis of scientific literature and judicial practice materials, the issue of the formation and development of the rule on responsibility for the illegal organization and conduct of gambling in the criminal law of Russia was considered. Discussion and Conclusions: the author reviewed the content of changes to the original version of Art. 171.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and came to the conclusion that there are debatable aspects in the decisions taken by the legislator aimed at improving measures to counter the illegal gambling business.