Russia blacklists payment processors Skrill and Qiwi over online gambling links

Russia’s communications regulator has put two major payment processing sites on its blacklist because of their links to online gambling.

On Thursday, Russia’s Roskomnadzor agency slapped its scarlet letter on Skrill and Qiwi for (a) containing links to unauthorized online gambling sites and (b) facilitating payments for same.

Both sites remain active for the time being, as Qiwi posted a notice to its Facebook page saying that Roskomnadzor had given the company a 24-hour grace period in which to purge the offending gambling advertisements from their pages.

Skrill is familiar to Western online gamblers while Qiwi is a Cyprus-based processor that primarily operates in Russia and other Eastern European countries. Qiwi operates over 175k electronic payment terminals across Russia through its KIWI-Bank subsidiary.