Putin appoints single bookmaking operator in Russia

 

The order is published on the official portal of legal information. The document will come into force on September 1, 2021.

QIWI payment company will cease to be one of the two interactive bets accounting centers (TSUPIS) operating in the Russian market. 

Until recently, there had been two TSUPISs –  Mobile Card (since 2015) and QIWI (since 2016) – who accepted electronic bets on behalf of bookmakers in Russia and processed their payments.

According to SPARK, Mobile Card belongs to several minority stakeholders, with the largest stakes held by Olga Zhuravskaya, First Vice President of Liga Stavok (Betting League) (16.5%), and Igor Avdeev (11.25%).

According to RBC, QIWI investors took the news negatively. The company's shares on Nasdaq dropped by 7.5% (to $8.9) as of 17:30 MT compared to the previous day, and by 7.2%, to RUB661 on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

A law on a new betting business regulation adopted in Russia in December 2020, provides for establishing the Single Gambling Regulator responsible for supervision over the betting market. By Putin’s order, this role was assigned to the Modern Payment Solutions company, 99.9% owned by VTB Real Estate LLC, a part of the VTB Group, according to SPARK data. Also, the law approved the foundation of the ETSUP (Mobile Card) to replace the existing TSUPISs. In December 2020, QIWI announced that it would apply to the Russian government asking for their appointment a single betting operator.

As follows from the financial statements of QIWI, in the first half of 2021, the total volume of all betting industry operations in QIWI amounted to 27% (RUB223.3 billion) of the volume of payments in the payment services segment, as well as 37% (RUB3.4 billion) of net proceeds from payments in that segment.

The activities of QIWI Group’s TSUPIS together with the related acquiring services and payouts over the same period accounted for 23% of net proceeds from payments in the payment services segment (RUB 2 billion). QIWI noted that if it fails to secure an active role in this new industry sector, the company may “face a decrease or complete loss of payments and revenues directly or indirectly related to the TSUPIS established by QIWI Bank.”

“This or any other significant amendment in the betting business laws could negatively affect the payment turnover, revenue and margins of our payment services business, as well as the overall use of the QIWI Wallet,” the company warned.