The Internet out of the game
The bill providing for the legalization of online gaming business was submitted to the State Duma by the head of the Federation Council’s Economic Policy Committee Oganes Oganyan. According to him, if bookmakers and totes are allowed, then gambling in the Internet can be allowed as well. However, this opinion is not shared by everyone. For example, the Government’s Deputy Chairman Alexander Zhukov, in his official comment, notified the deputies that the Government does not support the law as “it does not correspond to the purposes of setting tough requirements and restrictions for gambling operations, targeted at the protection of the citizens’ morals, rights and legal interests”. Oganyan’s proposal was rejected by the voting majority.
Moreover, several other gambling-related bills are waiting their turn to be considered by the State Duma. These bills provide for various punishments for gambling arrangement in the Internet – from fines (up to 1 million rubles) to imprisonment (up to 4 years). No sanctions for online gambling operators have been specified yet. However, according to the experts’ estimation, the market volume of the Internet gambling in Russia was about USD 100 million two years ago, when the state started limiting it. Under the current circumstances many operators and players moved to the Internet cafes.
It will be not at all easy to completely eliminate online casinos from home or office computers. The matter is that anyway the law can be applied only to the websites registered in Russia. And most Internet casinos are registered somewhere in the Dominican Republic or Malta. The only costs for setting them up are related to buying specialized software for USD 10-30 thousand. And their profitability may be assumed by the fact that two German domains – Casino.de and Pocker.de – have been re-sold for ˆ400 thousand and ˆ695 thousand correspondingly.