Russia censorship targets sports betting portals, affiliates

Russia has crack a whip on online betting portals in the country by imposing tougher and wider censorship, which will now include sports media portals and its affiliates.

News website Izvestia.ru reported that the Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor has started to heighten its IP-restrictions, which targets high traffic affiliate websites.

According to the news report, the Roskomonador has already shut out more than 6,000 gambling and lottery websites and its affiliates that the Russian government deemed violating their regulations since October 2015.

From June 8 to 21 alone, at least 118 online casinos and online bookmakers’ websites have been blocked by the Russian media regulator. There were at least 50 applications in Apple’s AppStore and Google Play that were blocked by the Roskomnadzor, according to the news report.