Russia’s telecom watchdog has reached preliminary agreement with the country’s search engines on measures to block local residents’ access to banned gambling sites. This week, the Roskomnadzor agency convened a meeting with the country’s leading search engines, including Yandex, Sputnik and Mail.ru, to ensure that Russian citizens are denied access to the thousands of websites that the watchdog consigns to its ever-expanding blacklist each week. In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed two federal laws: one requiring Russian internet service providers to block all mirror sites of blacklisted domains, and the other putting strict new curbs on Russians’ use of…

Russia’s hyper-vigilant telecom watchdog has recorded a spike in complaints related to illegal distribution of online gaming content in the first six months of 2017. In the first half of the year, online sentinel Roskomnadzor said it received more than 38,700 reports related to unlawful distribution of online gambling—a 235% increase from the same period last year. The Russian federal agency also saw an increase in complaints in other categories, including child pornography (21,000 reports), drugs and drug use (39,000 reports), promotion of suicide (19,000 reports). In total, Roskomnadzor said it received more than 118,000 reports on the distribution of…

Russia’s regulated sports betting market could triple its turnover over the next five years thanks to new market entrants and high-profile sports events like the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Russian gambling affiliate Bookmakers Ratings recently issued a new report that pegged current annual turnover of the Russian betting market at around RUB 677b (US $11.75b), of which around 60% is claimed by Russian-licensed operators. Annual betting revenue in this country of 144m people is estimated at RUB 47b (US $816m). The report projects that the growing number of licensed online bookmakers, coupled with interest driven by Russian-hosted marquee sports events…

Russia this week tightened the screws on banks and payment processors, ordering them to cleanse the names of unlicensed online operators from their client lists. The Izvestia news agency has reported that the Russian media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has written to Russia’s largest bank, Sherbank, as well as payment processors Skrill and Yandex, ordering them to remove operators from their customer-base in compliance with the law. Russia is in the midst of legalizing and regulating sports betting, a fact that has steeled its resolve to stamp out unregulated sites. The state began ISP blocking online gambling websites around September 2015 after…

Russia’s Ministry of Finance has drafted a new bill designed to block payment transactions with international online gambling companies. According to Russian news website RBC.ru, the proposed legislation, which is set to be discussed by the government on Thursday, sets out regulations that would require banks and payment processors to block transactions between punters in the country and international operators. Should the bill gain approval, the Federal Task Service would create a blacklist of Russian and international companies and individuals that participate in illegal online gaming activities, with the list to then be sent to financial institutions in the country,…

While online gaming – including online poker – is not currently legal in Russia, it hasn’t stopped most online gaming operators from offering services to country’s 144 million residents. However, it may become more difficult for online gaming companies to operate within Russia due to a new Finance Bill introduced by the country’s Finance Ministry, which if passed would prohibit banks from processing any online gaming transactions. The bill has strong support, including that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is believed to have pushed for the bill to be presented to the country’s legislators. While this bill, if passed,…