It also encouraged parties outside SEC jurisdiction to provide evidence. The SEC acknowledged Flutter had cooperated fully with its investigation by sharing the discoveries of its own internal investigation. “Following our acquisition of TSG, we made significant changes to implement a framework of controls in line with Flutter’s existing standards.” This is a legacy issue, related to a period prior to Flutter’s ownership of the Stars Group,” a spokesman said. In a statement, Flutter said it was pleased the matter had concluded, while emphasizing the alleged infractions took place under previous ownership. Despite PokerStars’ best efforts behind the scenes, Russia legalized sports betting instead and cracked down harder on all other forms of online gambling.įlutter, which pulled all its operations out of Russia after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations under the settlement. Russian Finance Ministry officials acknowledged that the ban on live poker games had driven the activity underground, and suggested that it would be better to license and tax it, along with the online variety.īut it never happened. At the time, operators considered Russia a “gray market,” where no regulatory or legal guidelines were available when it came to foreign-based online gambling sites. The country has an estimated 20 million online poker players, some already playing on PokerStars. The Kremlin made noise about legalizing and regulating online poker beginning in mid-2015. And it “failed to both devise and maintain a sufficient system of internal accounting controls over its operations in Russia with respect to third-party consultants, and to consistently make and keep accurate books and records regarding its consultant payments in Russia,” according to the SEC. The company violated rules under US foreign bribery law, the SEC claimed.
It was also used to reimburse payments made by one consultant to Roskomnadzor, the state agency responsible for administering internet censorship filters, according to the SEC. Some of the money ended up funding New Year’s gifts to Russian government officials.
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