Russia wants to criminalize online casino advertising

In Russia, it is proposed to introduce criminal liability for online casino advertising. As "Izvestia" found out, such a bill will be submitted to the State Duma on December 17 by the first deputy chairman of the Duma Control Committee Dmitry Gusev and the leader of the faction "Just Russia - For Truth" Sergey Mironov. According to the document, the parliamentarians propose to punish this with imprisonment of up to six years.

"In Russia actively spreading banned by law gambling establishments (online casinos) available on the Internet. Despite the existence of a direct ban on their activities, technically such sites are located on foreign servers, and their players are Russian citizens," Mironov explained to Izvestia.

According to him, this indicates insufficient regulation of this area by the state.

In the explanatory note to the bill, the authors note that currently in Russia there is no weighty responsibility for advertising and promotion of online casinos. For such a violation under the CAO provides only a fine of 2-2.5 thousand rubles, and the number of administrative cases is small. So, based on the answer to the deputies from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, under Article 14.1.1 of the CAO "Illegal organization and conduct of gambling" in 2023, only 104 protocols were issued in 2023, in 2022 - five, in 2021 - 19, in 2020 - 20, in 2019 - 55.

"A ludomaniac is a woe in the family. Despite the bans, online casinos are growing in popularity. The current fines are too small to discourage violators. We propose to significantly increase the responsibility for advertising such establishments. This includes heavy fines and even jail terms for violators. Our goal is to protect citizens and especially children from the traps of "one-armed bandits," Gusev explained the need for tougher penalties to Izvestia.

In mid-October, the Association of Entertainment and Event Tourism Operators told Izvestia that almost 500 thousand people visited Russian gambling zones in the third quarter of 2024. Compared to July-September last year, this figure increased by 18%.