Russia Adds 600 Gambling Sites to National Blacklist

Russia has introduced a new anti-online gambling initiative and its authorities have added 600 new internet gambling sites to the national blacklist that will be blocked by local ISP providers. The list of 600 online gambling sites blocked by Russia includes major players such as Party Poker, Titan Poker, Unibet and Pokerstars. The deputy head of Russia’s federal telecommunications, Maxim Ksenzov made use of the popular social network, twitter to respond to media questions regarding this initiative. He commented, “The initiative of blocking 600 online gambling sites came from the national prosecutor’s office and this authority had been passed on June 2013 but did not provide full details.” In response from Pokerstars spokesperson, in answer to queries from TwoPlusTwo poker forum said, “Pokerstars was well aware of the situation in Russia but we did not anticipate the company to change the way we offer our services to the Russian punters and we proceeded with business as usual. The spokesperson wrote, “Our terms and conditions made it clear that our services were only available for use where it is legal to do so, but the initiative of the action by Common Registry of Banned Websites and Russian authorities has prevented  Russian punters to access our Pokerstar.com website and it does not affect ability to play at PokerStars. “