Russia will legalize online wagering

Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation has developed a bill that will legitimate online bookmaker and wagering business, according to Izvestia newspaper. Online betting will be controlled by the special authority, which is a nonbank credit organization (NCO). NCO will accept money from citizens via the payment terminal, ATM or digital payment system and transfer it to the game provider.

The bill states that in order to start an online bookmaker and wagering business, the person would need to obtain a license and self-regulatory organization (SRO) membership.

Websites that fail to meet the requirements will be blocked.

As for now, the current gambling regulation (№ 244-ФЗ) forbids to use Internet for gambling business. As a result, bookmakers create websites at foreign domain extensions and many of those work without license. Experts estimate that for each legal gambling club, there are two illegal venues.

Basically, the proposed amendments aim to ban illegal operations. Only SRO members would be able to provide services online and it seems it’s transforming into the key business channel.

Oleg Zhuravskiy, Self-Regulatory Organization of Russian Bookmakers President said that the stated bill would bring economic benefits to everyone involved into such business.

 “Russian bookmakers would be able to have legal operations online. The State is going to have a tax profit.  And the clients will be protected by the market monitoring authorities,” said Mr. Zhuravskiy.