Russia’s bookmaker ranks are already thinning in response to the government’s proposed new regulatory environment. 

On Tuesday, Russian-licensed betting site VulkanBet.ru announced that it would “cease to operate on the territory of the Russian Federation from January 1, 2021.” The site has already stopped accepting new wagers and customer registrations, but promises to honor “all obligations to players and contractors” by December 31. 

VulkanBet.ru launched in June 2019 and the company humble-bragged that it had since become one of Russia’s top-three eSports betting platforms. But the company said it plans to “focus its development on markets with more loyal conditions for conducting betting business.”  

The message didn’t explicitly say so, but VulkanBet was referring to Bill No. 1055657-7, which (for starters) aims to impose a new 1% tax on betting turnover to fund contributions to local sports bodies (with significant quarterly minimums per league per operator), while also scrapping the country’s two rival betting industry groups in favor of a new Unified Gambling Regulator.