BettingExpert exit Russia; did Opera’s built-in VPN rile censors?

Online sports betting affiliate BettingExpert has withdrawn from the Russian market after its website was blocked by the country’s communications watchdog.

On Thursday, the Twitter account of BettingExpert’s Russian-language site announced that it was exiting Russia. The account said a full announcement would be released “in the coming days” but justified the exit as being prompted by the realization that “the current situation in the Russian market is not very interesting.”

BettingExpert began a Russian-language service in 2013 but its site was blocked this July by the Roskomnadzor telecom overseer, which has blocked thousands of actual gambling domains – including a whopping 979 between November 14-21 – since it was granted new powers in October 2015. Roskomnadzor has also targeted sites for promoting or facilitating online gambling, including many online operators’ social media accounts.

BettingExpert isn’t the only ones bidding Russia do svidaniya. On Tuesday, Opera Software, the Norwegian company behind the Opera online browser, announced that they were closing their Russian office on November 30, allegedly due to a decline in local revenue having made the office’s continued operation no longer viable.