This article by Robert Carmona-Borjas has some nice points: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres...e-poker-2016-1


Far from being a step backwards, Russia’s current move builds on what others have learned since UIGEA. Moscow plans to license, regulate, and tax online gambling operators. Russia has seen the future and decided to embrace it, at least as far as online gambling goes.


But why is this good news? Think of how Prohibition, the US's nationwide ban on alcohol between 1920-1933, turned a large proportion of the American population into criminals, simple for consuming something they wanted. During that period, non-alcohol related crime used popularly-supported but illegal liquor sales as a cover for larger, more socially damaging crimes.

Secondly, Russia’s move marks a major step towards international acceptance that poker is a game of skill, and not a game of chance. As former New York Senator Alfonse D’Amato wrote in 2011, “Congress knows that poker is a game of skill. Congress knows that playing games of skill in American homes needn’t be outlawed. And Congress knows that, since poker is a game of skill that is legal in the home, it should be legal to play it online.”