Russian Gambling Industry in the News — Weekly Round-up for October 26, 2018

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Oct 26, 2018

Does Russia Have A Secret Domain Blocking Technology?

Roskomnadzor official hints at “a completely new system of filtering and blocking content.”

Russia‘s notoriously ban-happy telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor is working on a new filtering technology in its fight to deny Russians access to international online gambling websites, if a recent speech by its chief, Alexander Zharov, is anything to go by.

According to the official news agency Tass, Zharov briefed a meeting of federal lawmakers on the new technology, without giving too much away but revealing that implementation is planned within the next year, and that “a completely new system of filtering and blocking content” would be a dramatic game changer in Roskomnadzor’s favour.

In the meantime the regulator will continue to purge illegal internet activity through mass domain blocking tactics, which do not thus far appear to have been effective despite 90,000 or more domains banned this year alone..

Technically, the regulator has just completed an update of its enforcement measures via a switch to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in an effort to improve performance of the preceding IPv4 (see previous InfoPowa reports).

Use It Or Lose It, Duma Tells Russian Licensees

New legislation before the Russian parliament empowers the regulator to withdraw licensing if no activity in three consecutive months

Betting Business Russia reports that a new draft bill moving through the Russian Duma (parliament) will give gambling regulators the power to withdraw licensing from any operator who is inactive for three consecutive months.

The bill apparently also includes provisions to amend current legislation in order to prohibit some gambling organisers in retail betting offices and betting shops from deploying ‘visualisation technologies’ similar to those used in gaming machines.

---