Ivan Zharkov is an international journalist and analyst at Casinoz. He has been with the project since 2010: in the early years as a reporter and review author, and from 2014 in international journalism and analytics. He prepares major materials: analyses of regional markets, longreads about industry trends, analysis of regulatory changes in key jurisdictions, portraits of the largest operators and providers. By education he is an international journalist — he graduated from the Faculty of International Journalism of MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations).

Unlike the daily news feed, his materials give the reader not "what happened" but "what it means". When the UK regulator tightens affordability check requirements, it is not just a news item — it is a signal that within six months to a year will reshape the behaviour of all global operators. Ivan understands these signals and conveys them to the reader in a form that helps make sense of the industry systemically.

He constantly works with English-language source material: regulator reports, corporate documents of public operators, financial filings, industry research. He regularly follows the regulators of the United Kingdom, Malta, Germany, Canada, and Australia — the main points where regulatory trends in the industry are formed. This allows the Casinoz editorial team to be the first to spot long-term shifts, before they turn into industry-wide news.