{"id":13683,"date":"2021-01-22T21:36:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T21:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=13683"},"modified":"2026-04-23T22:27:47","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:27:47","slug":"russias-central-bank-wages-war-on-online-gambling-payments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/russias-central-bank-wages-war-on-online-gambling-payments","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s central bank wages war on online gambling payments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Banks and payment operators have been hit with sanctions for allowing transfers to online gaming sites and illegal bookies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Russia.- The <strong>Russian central bank<\/strong> has issued new regulations that have made it more difficult for customers of <strong>online casinos<\/strong> to get paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Media outlet The Bell has reported that many companies have seen <strong>operations paralysed <\/strong>since mid-January, due to a series of measures targeting payments to <strong>unlicensed bookmakers and online casinos.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Systems such as Qiwi and Yoo.Money had been temporarily banned from carrying out transactions with foreign countries out of Russia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, <strong>10 banks and payment operators<\/strong> are reported to have been hit with <strong>sanctions. <\/strong>Fintekh and Onego have even had their business licences pulled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many platforms can now only accept <strong>bets in cryptocurrency<\/strong>. On non-authorised sites such as Admiral777, JoyCasino, and Gaminator, bets can only be made in <strong>Bitcoin.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Bell reported that some online gambling operators have resorted to visiting long-standing players in person to deal in cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-gambling-regulation-in-russia\">Gambling regulation in Russia<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Russian-speaking operators\u2019 revenues were estimated at US$17bn in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The country is currently mulling the idea of creating a<span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"> <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/russian-legislators-to-vote-on-single-gambling-regulator\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">single gambling regulator<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span> for the whole of the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last year, new measures and <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/russia-imposes-new-tax-on-sports-betting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">taxes were imposed<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong> on betting on overseas sports events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Banks and payment operators have been hit with sanctions for allowing transfers to online gaming sites and illegal bookies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Russian central bank has implemented stringent new regulations targeting payment processing for unlicensed online gaming sites and bookmakers, leading to operational paralysis for many companies. This has resulted in sanctions against ten banks and payment operators, including license revocations for Fintekh and Onego, forcing a shift towards cryptocurrency transactions for non-authorised platforms. The measures underscore Russia's evolving regulatory landscape as it considers a unified gambling regulator.","focusai_entities":"Russian central bank, The Bell, Qiwi, Yoo.Money, Fintekh, Onego, Admiral777, JoyCasino, Gaminator","focusai_location":"Russia, Russian Federation","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.95), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.7), product_ux (0.7), tech_data (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Payment Processors","query":"What is the projected financial impact and operational restructuring required for sanctioned payment operators like Qiwi and Yoo.Money to regain compliance and market access in Russia?"},{"label":"Regulatory Framework Evolution","query":"How might the proposed creation of a single gambling regulator in the Russian Federation further consolidate market control and influence the operational viability of both licensed and grey-market iGaming entities?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16331,156,158],"tags":[23919,23911,4138],"class_list":["post-13683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elsewhere-news","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","tag-cryptocurrencies","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-online-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13687,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13683\/revisions\/13687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}