1xbet tops Russian bookie search rankings; Liga Stavok opens Russia’s first OTB shop

Russian bookmaker 1xbet is the country’s top searched-for betting operator, according to new research.

A new report by marketing agency Specialists E-iq and Market Leader magazine showed betting operator 1xbet dominating a list of the top 18 bookmaker brands searched for by Moscow-based punters on leading Russian search engine Yandex during the month of February.

1xbet, which ranked third on a recent bookmaker website traffic chart behind Fonbet and Marathon, generated over 570k searches on Yandex last month. That’s more than twice the 218k search requests made for runner-up Baltbet, the country’s second largest retail betting operator.

Liga Stavok, which was recently granted the first license under Russia’s new online sports betting regime, ranked third with 121k search requests. In total, the top three operators claimed over 68% of total searches for the 18 bookmakers on the Yandex chart, with 1xbet claiming 43% all by itself.