Why and how the state fights online casinos

Immediately make a reservation: I have never played and not going to an online casino, but I am familiar with the scale of this business: the network Las Vegas annually brings billions to its owners, and even if you take into account the huge amount of gaming resources, business is very profitable.

I have long heard of some domestic laws prohibiting online casinos, but so far every viewing of TV shows on the Internet turns into a battle with the obsessive advertising of the notorious B ** kana and J ** Casino. Probably, someone will argue, they say, use paid content, or do not complain, but I can not give up the old habits.

So, today I stumbled upon the news , which says about the closure by responsible agencies (FTS and VKN) of 6 thousand online casinos. In online gambling forums, users often complain about cheating by services — that is, avoiding paying taxes is not the only sin of virtual casinos.
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I remember how quickly all the casinos in my city disappeared as soon as the relevant law was passed. Surely there were some underground offices, which are known only to experienced gamers, which means that the conditional mechanic Petrovich is unlikely to go there and leave his entire salary.

But on the Internet from the point of view of regulation, everything is much more complicated: instead of one blocked resource, like three hydra heads, three new ones appear. In addition, most experienced users are familiar with various means of bypassing locks. But in the case of online casinos, it seems to me, the main goal is not to close access to regular users, but to remove advertising, which not only irritates, but also can lure a large number of people, including minors, into the excitement network. Such services can not be compared with the educational "Wikipedia" (she likes the authorities or not) or with pirated torrents, where they just watch movies. Hence, their pursuit can cause a negative reaction only among avid gamers who need the help of a psychologist.

In this regard, I propose to leave banners with advertisements of such casinos, but when you click on a picture of a user, you need to redirect to the pages of psychological help centers or helplines.

I note that in the Russian Federation, they have been actively fighting both offline and Internet one-armed gangsters and other rogues for a long time. Nevertheless, with regard to the clarity of the regulation of gambling, here Russia is almost ahead of the rest. The English-language resource gamblingsites.com calls our laws "absolutely understandable." There are gaming zones, there are a couple of legal online services, everything else is prohibited. In the United States, for example, everything is much more complicated : the act, adopted in 2006, did not prohibit the activities of online casinos and betting shops, but imposed responsibility on the financial institutions that served them. At present, everything has become even more complicated due to the different regulations in each state. Everything is very difficult and in most European countries with the exception of Britain, where the gaming business is allowed, but is required to receive special licenses and generally be fairly transparent.

Since 2009, the activity of casinos and slot machines outside four specially designated gambling zones has been officially banned in Russia. Gambling sites on the Internet, which are located on foreign domains, also fell under the law. Until 2014, blocking such resources by a court decision was ineffective and only worked for regional providers.

In 2013, the first check of the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation occurred, revealing 219 illegal resources. Based on these materials, the court decided to block sites. The first wave of locks occurred in March 2014.

In the summer of the same year, the Federal Tax Service received extraordinary judicial blocking of casinos, which actively began to use them last year.

PS If you are still unable to cope with casino addiction, be careful and place bets only on those online casinos that have a special license from the Federal Tax Service. These casinos impose a number of stringent requirements in terms of the authorized capital, bank guarantee and assets. Also, the bookmaker, after receiving the license, is obliged to join a special self-regulatory organization (SRO), to which certain requirements are made.

After receiving the license and joining the SRO, the casino can even start working offline. For this, the SRO, in which the casino is located, must create a banking or non-banking credit organization or enter into a share of the already established one. The casino concludes an agreement with this organization on the implementation of the functions of the online betting transfer accounting center (TSUPIS), opens an account there and only after that can it start accepting bets, but only through this system.

There are no other legal options for betting on the Internet.