PUTIN TO RUSSIANS: STOP DRINKING AND GAMBLING
MINA
Wednesday, 01 July 2009
At the Metelitsa casino, the oldest private gambling house in Moscow,
which opened in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union, they are
packing up the card shoes and folding the gaming tables away.
Across Russia thousands of others are doing the same as a gambling
ban comes into force today. Gambling is now illegal outside special
zones in four remote regions under laws ordered by Vladimir Putin,
the Prime Minister, which have cost up to half a million jobs and
$1 billion in tax revenues. The ban spells the end of an era which
witnessed an eruption of gambling fuelled by a lawless business
culture in which fortunes were made and lost with dizzying speed.
"We can’t really believe it’s happening. We have had to make 1,000
people redundant," says Ian Livingstone, the Metelitsa’s British
general manager. "We were hoping with the current financial crisis
that there would be some leniency for two or three years, but they
didn’t do it. It’s hard to understand why this decision was made
in the first place." As a result of the new legislation, the neon
casino frontages that illuminated central Moscow’s prestigious Novy
Arbat street are dark after the Metelitsa and several of more than
500 gambling venues in the capital chose to close a day early, on
Monday night, to avoid possible police raids.
As the deadline to shut up shop approached, waitresses marked the
Metelitsa’s demise by handing out glasses of champagne to customers
who eagerly placed bets at blackjack tables and on roulette, some
spraying $500 chips across the baize. Through the cigar smoke one told
The Times: "I changed $2,000 into chips and I’m just enjoying myself
because there’ll be no more chances after today. It’s a stupid law."
Mr Putin insists that the measure will tackle a growing problem of
gambling addiction among Russians and control an industry notorious
for links with criminal gangs and moneylaundering. Critics argue
that it will do the reverse, and simply drive gambling underground
and into criminal control. Relentless police pressure had already
forced hundreds of gambling establishments to close and Moscow city
council insisted that the last 524 would shut by today. The city’s
coffers stand to lose almost $200 million in annual tax revenues as
a result. Many casino operators plan to leave Russia, arguing that
Government gambling zones – in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, the
Altai region of Siberia, the Far East area of Primoriye and around the
Sea of Azov in southern Krasnodar region – will need $40 billion in
investment to turn them into the Russian equivalents of Las Vegas,
Atlantic City or Monte Carlo. Mr Livingstone said that Metelitsa
would examine opportunities in Kazakhstan, while others are looking
to Armenia and Georgia.