Russia had been willing to amend the legislation relating to gambling. However, the legislators have missed the deadline to propose the amendments to the Bill No. 1055657-7.
The proposed amendments include hiking Russian bookmakers’ contributions to local sports, eliminating two betting industry associations, creating a new Unified Gambling Regulator and establishing a single hub for online betting payments.
However, the deadline for said amendments has been extended to January 22, 2021.
This comes as good news for bookmakers and operators who were opposed to these amendments. Now they have the Christmas break to make most of the existing legislation before it gets amended.
As per CalvinAyre.com, betting licensees are reluctant to hand control of any single payment hub to a private operator, which they fear will take advantage of its monopoly to dramatically hike processing fees. It remains to be seen whether the law is amended in January or the bookies and operators are given a say in the matter.