Russian online bookmaker traffic falls; factionalism delays online payment hub

Fonbet remains Russia’s most popular online bookmaker, according to a new website traffic report.

Russian gambling company First Gaming, which operates under the Rub90 brand, has released its annual snapshot of the nation’s online sports betting industry. As reported by Bookmakersrating.ru, the overall volume of visits to Russian betting sites declined 24.4% last year, worse than the 11.5% decline recorded in 2014.

While Russia’s domain-blocking actions likely haven’t helped matters, First Gaming attributes the overall traffic decline to a delayed reaction by bookmakers to punters’ growing preference for mobile over desktop internet access. Desktop internet users have seen their ranks fall 47.1% to 32m while Russia’s mobile user ranks more than doubled to 50m.

Visits to Fonbet’s site hit 3.44m in December 2015, up from 2.4m in the 2014 report. Betting operator Marathon ranked second with 1.68m, although this was down sharply from 2.27m in 2014. 1xbet ranked third with 860k visits, down nearly half from 1.57m.