Online gambling operator Marathon has relaunched its Russian-licensed site after suspending operations earlier this year.

On Thursday, Betting Business reported that Marathon had restarted its Marathonbet.ru site after temporarily suspending operations in early February. The site, which launched in July 2017, originally claimed that “technical reasons” were behind the time out, but admitted last month that it needed to renew its license after changing the location of its “processing center of interactive rates.”

Meanwhile, the first Western betting brand to operate legally in Russia got off to flying start thanks to some timely social media branding. Bwin, the flagship online betting brand of UK-listed GVC Holdings, teamed with Russian operator Digital Betting LLC to launch the Bwin.ru joint venture last November.

Digital Betting is controlled by Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut, who also owns the sports-themed portal Championat. On Thursday, Championat offered some insights from Digital Betting CEO Dmitry Sergeyev into how Bwin.ru marketed itself in its early days.