Russia Blocks Skrill and Qiwi for Gambling

This story was published more than 7 years ago.

Russia has opted to block its citizens from using the payment processing firms Skrill and Qiwi, citing ties to illegal online betting sites as a means for banning the services.

The ban was laid down by the Roskomnadzor agency, who said both sites had links on their sites to online betting sites. Skrill has long been used as a money processor for internet betting sites, and is used as a popular means throughout Europe. Qiwi is more obscure, but is popular among those in the former Soviet bloc.

For their part, Qiwi claims that Russia gave them a 24 hour grace period to remove the ads from their pages in order to avoid banishment.

Casino Listings will update this story as more developments arise.

About the author

Dustin Jermalowicz // News Editor
Dustin Jermalowicz
Dustin has a long-standing passion for gambling. He has been writing professionally on the subject and breaking industry news for Casino Listings since 2011. His favorite casino games include Blackjack, Poker, and Hi/Lo. A proud native of Detroit, Dustin currently lives in Michigan.
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bgsharpe
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20 July 2016 - 10:14pm
#1

I think both processors or at least Qiwi will remove the gambling ads from their pages, not so sure about Skrill though, it all depends if Russia is an important market for them I guess.
I understand that Russian authorities trying to fight with the illegal gambling but even the legal one in Russia have to be working trough those payment processors. So all starting to look like it's the communist regime back again and this is not a ....democracy, which suppose to be there.

auCL-Ed
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22 July 2016 - 1:53am
#2

Seeing as I am certain that Skrill was hacked earlier this year and loads of people had money stolen, they are probably doing people there a favour even if it is for other reasons.

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bgsharpe
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22 July 2016 - 9:38pm
#3

Yeah I guess you could see it that way either although I didn't have such issues so far and there are no real alternatives of Skrill for me.