Russia Plans to Introduce New Financial Restrictions on Gaming Operators
Russia continues to increase the pressure on unregulated gaming operators by requiring licensed gaming operators to use a single financial transaction portal.
According to PokerFuse, the newly established Self-Regulatory Organisation of Russian Bookmakers (SRORB) by could be responsible for operating the new portal.
The President of Russia’s National Association of Bookmakers Yury Fedorov believes the new financial framework should be implemented by June 2015.
Federov told eGaming Review, "The Self-Regulatory Organisation (SRO) will open a processing center for all legal operators and in the same period the government will send information and instructions to all payments systems in Russia to stop the arrangement of payments for all companies that are not in the SROs."
Additionally this new Russian bill may require Russian banks and financial institutions to block all financial transactions from unlicensed gaming operators.
Currently only Russian licensed bookmakers are legally allowed to offer gaming services. There are hopes that online casinos and online poker could be regulated at some point within the country's borders with Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov mandating to the country's Ministry of Finance, Ministry for Economic Development and Ministry of Justice to evaluate the possibility of legalizing online poker in the country in July 2014.
Oleg Zhuravsky, President of Self-regulatory Organization of Bookmakers, also plans to take legal action under local and possibly international law against companies providing unlicensed gaming services in the country.
In reaction to this warning, international gaming operator, Ladbrokes, announced its exit from the Russian gaming marketplace earlier in the month.
There is no news how other online poker operators, include PokerStars, will react to Russia's warnings. It is believed that if Russian players leave the online poker marketplace, it could have a detrimental effect on both the poker ecology and online tournament prize pools.
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