Russian legislators approve first reading of bill to introduce gambling self-exclusion programme
The Russian gambling self-exclusion system could go live this year.
Russia.- Legislators in Russia’s lower house, the State Duma, have approved the first reading of a bill that would introduce a national gambling self-exclusion programme. The initiative would allow people to voluntarily enrol via the state services portal to exclude themselves from placing bets at casinos and bookmakers for a minimum of 12 months.
The legislation was drafted in the State Duma’s Committee on Physical Culture and Sports in mid-2024 and refined based on feedback from the Cabinet and industry experts. It now goes back to the committee stage for review before its second reading.
It’s expected that the programme would be overseen by the Unified Regulator of Gambling and that both land-based casinos and online betting operators would be legally mandated to verify players against the register.
There have been several suggestions for additional articles in the bill. The deputy Yana Lantratova has proposed that microloan providers be required to display a QR code linking to the self-exclusion portal both at offices and on their websites in a bid to reduce gambling-related financial problems.
Evgeny Marchenko has suggested that family members should be able to enroll relatives, but at the moment this will be limited to to legal trustees or guardians and only if a medical diagnosis confirms the individual to be partially incapacitated due to gambling addiction.
The Roscongress Foundation, a non-financial development institution, has estimated in 2023 that 15 to 20 per cent of Russian gamblers allocate more than 10 per cent of their family budget to the activity. The Ministry of Health says that over 14,000 people sought help for gambling addiction in 2022, including 6,000 teenagers, and it’s estimated that up to 5 per cent of all Russians have some level of gambling addiction.
Clampdown on online gambling in Russia
Although Russia has retail betting shops, land-based casinos are restricted to specific areas: Altai, Kaliningrad, Primorye, Sochi, and Crimea. Sports betting is the only form of online gambling permitted.
It was reported in April that the government was exploring a further clampdown on online gambling in Russia, including measures to prevent gambling payments made in cryptocurrency. The Central Bank was reportedly working on creating a database of cash and card mules.
Evgeny Masharov, a member of the Russian Civic Chamber, told the state-owned news agency TASS that a government commission aimed to foster better communication between three key state authorities: the federal media watchdog Roskomnadzor, which has the power to block IPs, the anti-money laundering body Rosfinmonitoring and the Central Bank, which will look into banning cryptocurrency payment for gambling.
Alexey Kornienko, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Property Issues, has said that some 147,000 unlicensed betting sites are targeting Russian players. That compares to 15 licensed operators. Roskomnadzor is regularly blocking unlicensed online casinos.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation has announced that new Ukrainian gambling regulator, PlayCity, is now operational. It said the agency’s initial priorities will be to digitise the gambling licensing process, launch a national online monitoring system to oversee regulated gambling operators in real time, tackle illegal gambling establishments and resume regulation of the lottery market. Another major objective is to eradicate gambling operations with ties to Russia from the Ukrainian market.
