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Read Full BioA new Russian law is set to allow citizens to opt into a “self-gambling prohibition” program. The bill proposes allowing Russians to add themselves to a state-curated list.
Casinos and bookmakers will need to ensure that bettors’ names do not appear on this list before letting customers place bets.
The bill is the brainchild of the State Duma’s Committee on Physical Culture and Sports. The committee first drafted the draft law in the summer of 2024. It has since made minor adjustments to its proposal after seeking approval from the Cabinet and experts.
Russian ‘Self-Gambling Prohibition Platform’ May Launch in 2025
The nation’s Parliamentary Gazette reported that lawmakers voted in favor of the bill during a State Duma session on May 28.
The bill will now return to the committee stage ahead of a second reading.
The committee proposes that the Unified Regulator of Gambling curate the list. It aims to enable citizens to add their names through the state services portal.
Those who wish to opt in will be able to choose how long they want to remain on the list, with a minimum period of 12 months.
Sergei Altukhov, the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, said that both brick-and-mortar casinos and online bookmakers will be legally obliged to check that new customers’ names do not appear on the list.
Another lawmaker and bill advocate, Yana Lantratova, said the law should also force microloan providers to display a QR code that directs citizens to the “self-prohibition portal” in their offices and on their websites.
Lantratova explained that gambling addicts often take out microloans to fuel their habits.
Roskomnadzor’s Quest to Block Illegal Casino Access
Fellow lawmaker Evgeny Marchenko urged the bill’s authors to go a step further and allow family members to sign up their loved ones to the list.
But one of the bill’s architects claimed that courts would only allow legal trustees or guardians to do this if a doctor had diagnosed a gambler as “partially incapacitated due to an unhealthy relationship with gambling.”
Alexey Kornienko, the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Property Issues, claimed experts have found 147,000 unregistered betting sites catering to Russians on the internet. Only 15 firms have successfully received legal bookmaking permits to date, he added.
MPs say that the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) identifies and blocks access to illegal online casinos “on a daily basis.”
Altukhov said parliamentarians are already working on amendments before an imminent second reading.
Gambling Addictions Deepening?
A leading NGO, the Roscongress Foundation, estimated in 2023 that between 15% and 20% of Russian bettors spend more than 10% of their family budget on gambling. The Ministry of Health, meanwhile, says more than 14,000 people sought medical help for gambling addiction in 2022.
The same ministry claimed that 6,000 of these individuals are teenagers. MPs added that experts estimate that up to 5% of Russians suffer from gambling addiction “to one degree or another.”
Last month, the Russian Finance Ministry said it was considering a proposal to end on-site inspections at the country’s five legal casinos.
Also in May, security agents in the cities of Krasnoyarsk, Kansk, and Achinsk shut down an extensive network of underground casinos that were posing as permit-holding bookmakers.
