SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor has been urged to toughen its efforts in curbing national consumers access to unlicensed online gambling operators.
Following the orders of the Russian government, Roskomnadzor has been told to step up its restrictions by widening its IP-restrictions and website monitoring to include Russian language affiliates and sports betting portals.
Russian news sources report that Roskomnadzor has begun to increase its IP-restrictions adding a number of high traffic affiliate websites to its growing black-list.
Furthermore, the regulator may penalise popular sports portals such as Championat, express.ru and other media owners if they are deemed to have promoted illegal gambling websites.
At the start of 2016, the Duma stated that it would look to eliminate all unlicensed gambling operators targeting Russian consumers. Its actions against illegal gambling operators would be carried out by media agency Roskomnadzor, who moved to restrict Russian IP access to European betting operators including Triobet, Unibet, 888 and Betway.
Russian government officials stated that they would only favour online bookmakers and gambling operators compliant with its TSUPIS payment processing and money transfer codes, which would protect Russian consumers against criminal and fraudulent activities.
