Russia’s anti-piracy efforts harm the betting traffic 1xBet
Russia’s online sports bettors seem to have forgotten the name of the provider 1xBet after local authorities have begun cracking down on pirate video pages.
Last week, Vadim Subbotin, deputy chief of Russian telecom watchdog Roskomnadzor, told Interfax media agency that the joint efforts of the government, copyright holders and Russian telecom giants. This had resulted in the removal of around 1.4 m of video piracy links.
The agreement that unified these three forces expired on October 31, but last month the government declared it was drafting legislation to combine those online avengers permanently. That could spell trouble for the local online betting licence 1xbet, whose name has become almost synonymous with pirated videos to make sure consumers don’t miss their post.
Although 1xbet.ru operates with local approval, its foreign counterparts as one of Russia’s biggest online video advertisers have earned a reputation. 1xbet has become immensely popular for putting its logo right on the pirated video screen to ensure consumers don’t miss their massage.
Betting Company Russia published SimilarWeb data last week that showed the piracy crackdown could rob 1xBet of some of its promotional mojo. The Russian-licensed 1xBet placed sixth on the traffic list in October with just over 3 m visits after holding the top spot with over 10 m monthly visits for several months to run.
Similar Web traffic data released by LegalBet for November showed that October was not one-off. 1xBet’s Russian site traffic plummeted almost 70% year-on-year, and while some of the other big operators also experienced declines in traffic, none were on the scale of 1xBet ‘s fall from glory.
The fact that Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service recently levied a fine of RUB100k on Yandex search engine for returning search results probably won’t help this downturn. In violation of local advertising laws banning the promotion of online gambling, this included a connexion to both 1xbet and another local bookmaker, Leon.
