Casinos in most of Russia are about the close. From BBC News:
Gamblers in Moscow and other major Russian cities are placing their last bets ahead of a government ban on casinos and gaming halls.
A new law comes into effect at midnight, confining gambling to four regions far from the capital.
It bans gambling on the internet and at airports, supermarkets and other sites.
But critics say the move will leave more than 300,000 people without jobs and push the industry underground, amid a continuing economic crisis in Russia.
Unrealistic idea
The law was passed by the Russian parliament in 2006 and was the initiative of the then President Vladimir Putin, who is now serving as prime minister.
From 1 July, Russian gamblers will be restricted to specific zones in the Kaliningrad region by the Baltic Sea, the Primorye region in the Far East, Altai in Siberia and an area in the south spanning the Rostov and Krasnodar regions.
The dedicated gambling zones require massive investment, and critics argue that they are far from ready.
This might be the biggest rollback of a legal (though under-regulated) national gambling industry yet.
LOL, this will be very interesting to watch. From afar.
Anybody up for a vacation to the Primorsky Krai? Infrastructure-free, population-free… perfect place for a week-long retreat.
I googled Moscow casinos and I found out this information from the World Casino Directory. There are (I mean were since they are now closed) 54 casinos in Moscow that have 3417 gambling machines and 1250 table games. Divide this out and the average per casino is 63 gambling machines with 23 table games. That is a lot more table games than I expected. I would assume Las Vegas casinos would average about 10 gambling machines for every 1 table game.
Moscow has around 12 million people living there. There were 4.1 million foreign tourists in 2008 with 297,000 coming from Germany, 151,000 coming from the United States and 144,000 coming from Great Britain. I would think that Russia would have closer to around 10 million tourists a year but obviously I was way off.
My point is this: there are probably to many casinos in Moscow but they should not close all of them. The problem was they allowed way to many casinos to open in the first place. The reason so many casinos opened originally was that Russian politicians took bribe money or illegal payouts or got some kickback to allow all these casinos to open.
Don’t believe everything you read in the “World Casino Directory”… It’s hardly an accurate source.
Putin wanted to prove he was not controlled by the Russian mob, which controlled most of the casinos in the country. The mob had resisted regulations for many years, thus the crackdown.
And you’re not even considering the street machines. And I literally mean machines on the street. Some of the former newsstands had converted to street slot arcades, so the impression was that gambling was everywhere.
The mob and casino owners have only themselves to blame for the shutdown. But of course, you’re going to continue to see a blossoming illegal casino network spring up overnight. You just don’t stop people from gambling once you’ve got them hooked….
dave202 thanks for sharing information about my source “World Casino Directory”. The Russian mob obviously controls a lot of these casinos. The street machines is kind of bizarre though.
I used to get e-mails from a 23 year old Russian girl who helped run 2 casinos in Vladivostok, Russia (on the east coast of Russia and the Sea of Japan).
I thought it was extremely funny that the Russian casino’s name was the El Dorado (the former name of Binion’s Horseshoe)and that the movie sequel to Star Wars premiered in Russia before it was shown here.
I was amazed at how modern-day Russians are so tuned into western ways and want to get Americanized as much and fast as possible.
IMO (based on things I’ve read and heard) Russia has a lot of corruption and a seemingly inbred cultural trait to cheat in any system they are involved in (something I saw directly among Russian cab drivers in Las Vegas).
Putin has a big job on his hands trying to stop corruption. I wish him well.
PS. If any Russians read this comment…I stand behind my beliefs 100%. You can try to convince me otherwise if you want.