Digest of gambling news November 26 – December 2

The government will not entrust bookmakers with the functions of a tax agent yet, ERAI has expanded the list of federations for additional funding, and a new order of bookmaker deductions and higher rates may be approved in December. Meanwhile, a Russian bank has conducted the best financial investigation in the gambling industry, bookmakers note positive trends in the current World Cup, and the Russian team will take part in the World Esports Championship. These and other news from the gambling industry – in the Login Casino digest November 26 – December 2.

The order of taxation of winnings in Russia will remain the same for now

From the draft law on amendments to the Tax Code, which until recently was actively discussed in the Government, the provisions relating to changes in the taxation of winnings in sweepstakes, betting shops and lotteries have disappeared. Previously, it was assumed that from the moment the bill came into force, gambling operators would act as a tax agent for any customer winnings. According to current laws, bookmakers, sweepstakes and lotteries transfer tax to the treasury for a client only if the player's winnings exceed 15 thousand rubles.

The market opposed such changes. The first betting SRO, the Association for the Protection of the Rights of Gambling Market Participants, the subcommittee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation on the activities of bookmakers and sweepstakes presented alternative proposals, including – complete exemption of bookmakers from performing the functions of a tax agent. Even the Ministry of Economic Development pointed out that such regulations would only harm the market. As a result – in the course of the dispute resolution procedure, the norms relating to the work of bookmakers, lotteries and sweepstakes were completely excluded from the draft law under discussion.

ERAI expanded the list of sports federations for extrabudgetary funding

< p style="text-align: justify;">During November, the Unified Regulator expanded the list of sports federations that receive additional funding from betting fees. In November, ERAI signed the corresponding agreements with the All-Russian organization “Sports Knife Throwing”. and the Northern All-Around Federation. Thus, the pool of sports federations supported by the betting business has reached 119.

Kids sports will receive 30% of the betting deductions

According to the Izvestiya news portal, already in December the State Duma will pass in the first reading a bill that establishes new rules for the distribution of targeted betting deductions, as well as gradually increasing their size. According to the developed document, children's and youth and mass sports will receive 30% of betting deductions as opposed to 20%, which the direction receives now. The remaining 70% instead of the current 80% will go to the development of a professional sports direction. In the first version of the bill, it was proposed to allocate 25% of the total amount of earmarked deductions for children's and youth sports.

The size of the deductions themselves will also change. A gradual increase in the rate for the betting business from 1.5 to 2% is expected between 2023 and 2030.

Proposals from the Association for the Protection of the Rights of Players have been introduced into the bill to increase deductions bookmakers

This bill, among other things, involves strengthening control over the use of targeted betting fees. The association presented a number of additions to this issue, proposing:

• to oblige sports federations to publicly post information about the amount of deductions received and the purpose of their spending, and to do this not once a year, as it happens now, but quarterly;
• empower the Ministry of Sports with powers that will help strengthen control over the use of earmarked contributions, including giving the department the right to verify compliance with the rules for spending earmarked funds;
• refuse to create a special commission to control the use of betting fees and give these powers to the Ministry of Sports.

In turn, the Ministry of Finance proposed to finalize the bill, taking into account the proposals of the association and submit it to the State Duma in the first reading with the comments already taken into account.

< h2 style="text-align: justify;">Head of the “National Lottery” will head the Russian Post

The post of head of the main state postal company will be given to Mikhail Volkov, who now heads the Sports Lotteries company, which manages the National Lottery. The previous CEO of Russian Post left the post, citing personal reasons. However, the press has learned that there may be a connection between his departure from office and the poor financial performance of the state postal company: in just six months, the loss of Russian Post increased six times and reached 19.5 billion rubles.

The Russian bank conducted the best financial investigation in the gambling industry

The first place in the international competition of financial institutions of the Eurasian Group in the field of combating the legalization of criminal proceeds was taken by VTB Bank. The compliance division of the bank presented materials at the competition regarding the identification of a complex financial scheme for transferring money to an illegal gambling company. In the identified case, an unlicensed online casino acted under the guise of an organization that conducted pseudo-settlements for Internet acquiring for video and computer games.

The PARI bookmaker told about a successful bookmakers at the start of the World Cup

Alexey Babichev, PR director of BC PARI, shared his opinion. According to the expert, the tournament is developing as successfully as possible for bookmakers: two defeats of the favorites, not very productive matches and even four draws with a zero score, of course, play into the hands of betting houses. The most profitable match for BC PARI was the defeat of Argentina in the fight against Saudi Arabia.

Most of all BC PARI players bet on such games:

< li style="text-align: justify;">Australia – France (9.25% of rates);
• Saudi Arabia – Argentina (8.25% of rates);
• Serbia – Brazil (8.2% of rates).

At the same time, evening matches collect more bets than daytime games. Alexey Babichev also said that at this stage, within the framework of the 2022 World Cup, the office paid out two largest winnings: 2.045 million rubles at a rate of 801.996 thousand rubles, as well as 2 million rubles at a rate of 1 million rubles.

The total volume of bets on the football world championship will exceed $35 billion

The data was presented by Barclays Plc analysts. This amount is 65% higher than the volume of bets on the Russian championship. The sharp increase in the volume of bets compared to the previous World Cup is due to several factors at once:

• the popularity of online betting, which occurred during the pandemic;
• convenient time for the 2022 World Cup, since the games were previously held in the summer, during the holiday season.

For each match in the group stage, bookmakers accept about $400 million in bets. In the playoffs, this amount is expected to grow to $1 billion. In the final, the total betting volume is expected to exceed $2.5 billion.

Experts note that regular draws and unpredictable match results allow betting houses to get a good margin

Russians will perform at the eSports World Championship

The International Esports Federation allowed Russian cybersportsmen to participate in the World Championship, but only under a neutral flag. The competition will be held December 1-12 in Indonesia. The opponents of the Russians in the Dota 2 discipline in group C will be the teams of Syria, Colombia, Tunisia, Poland and Bulgaria. In the CS:GO discipline, the Russians will also compete in Group C, competing with the teams of Chile, India, and Tajikistan. The prize fund of the championship is $500,000.