In a surprising move yesterday, the Russia government announced that it will consider legalizing online poker in Russia. The move came after multiple inquiries of Kaha Kahiani, the president of the „League of Poker Fans“ to the government, where he stressed the successes of Russian players in major live tournaments and the fact that legalizing online poker would bring an additional 5 billion rubles (~$150,000,000) in taxes per year.
First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov sent a request to three government agencies to analyze the possibility of legalization. The Ministry of Justice, The Ministry of Finance and The Ministry of Economics will give their assessment of the legalization of online poker by the 21st of July.
So far, only positive feedback has been received from the government agencies, with the press secretary of The Ministry of Finance stating, “It would be appropriate to work on questions of regulating the organization and conduct of these types of games, including online poker”.
The Ministry of Finance, which is responsible for the government stance on gambling in general, so far declined to give any information on the Ministry’s position on the subject. The Ministry of Economics will be conducting mathematical analysis of the game to better understand the nature of poker and definitively say if it belongs in the category of gambling or games of skill. Some government officials have proposed that the Ministry of Economics use previously conducted studies from all over the world, including the US, where it was found that „Poker cannot be equated to other gambling games, where luck is the defining factor of the game“.
Igor Shuvalov also added, that since the question of legalizing online poker has profound social consequences, public opinion will play an important role in the final decision. The All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) will conduct a poll on the matter, which will be presented to the government for consideration.
VTsIOM already conducted a similar poll in October 2013, which found that Russians tend to view poker as separate from other gambling games. The poll was conducted both online and face-to-face, showing different, but overall positive attitudes towards poker. 42% of respondents, who were polled face-to-face, agreed that poker is game of skill, while 25% disagreed with that statement. Overall, 52% agreed that poker should be legal, while 24% disagreed with that statement. Online polls differed by a large margin, with 85% agreeing that poker is a game of skill and 84% agreeing that it should be legal.
What can go wrong?
Despite all the positive initial feedback and what seems like a straightforward approach to the issue from the Russian government, a lot can go wrong.
A major factor that is worth noting, is that the Russian government is plagued with corruption, so there is no way to predict or even give an educated guess of what the final decision will be. Even if online poker is legalized, it is very unlikely that the government will consider any issues important to players. The only factor that is likely to be considered is the amount of money that legalization can bring in with the games structured in a way that will bring in maximum profits to the government.
If online poker is legalized, it‘s almost certain that online poker rooms will have to be registered in Russia to provide legal playing platforms. At this point, it‘s anyone‘s guess what the legalized onine poker infrustructure in Russia will look like. It‘s not a far reach to imagine a system similar to Greece, where players pay taxes on every session the play, or in a more extreme case, the Russian government may decide to introduce a system where only official government-created online poker rooms can operate. Player pool segregation is also something that can only be speculated on at this point.
In 2007, poker was briefly added to the official list of sports in Russia, though it was removed from the list in 2009 when the first crackdowns on gambling began. Just a year ago, the Russian government created the „Registry of Banned Websites“. Any website added to this list is to be banned by internet providers. The list includes websites containing child pornography, information on drugs and suicide and more recently, gambling sites, inlcuding some of the domains of major operators like PokerStars. However, these measures are perceived as widely ineffective, as some of the internet providers simply fail to ban some of the websites on the list, not to mention the ease with which any such ban can be circumvented.