GAMBLING NEWS
Russia and Ukraine close casinos
Jul 6, 2009
There has been a big ongoing discussion in Russia and Ukraine for a few years whether to ban casinos in the two countries and this week the government implemented a new legislation forcing all casinos located in either of the two countries to close down their business. The two main reason of the ban that was put forward by the last president Vladimir Putin is that first of all get the population out of the casinos lowering the risk of becoming gambling addicts and second reason is because the casino business has attracted a lot of attention from criminal syndicates that runs lots of the casinos and making large profits on the same.
The Ban is not enforced throughout the entire Russian and Ukraine region since the president who is in charge Dmitry Medved has put up 4 legal gambling zones in the region. The Zones will harbor large gambling resorts where the closed down casino rooms and slot parlors are able to relocate into if they don’t want to shut their doors indefinitely. However even if the casinos are closing down, poker clubs are being legalized since the game has been deemed as a game of skill instead of a game of chance and it is speculated in that many of the casinos will relaunch as a poker rooms instead and will only focus on providing poker services-.
Local experts are not positive about the outcome and are of the opinion that the ban of the casinos only will criminate it further and a lot of underground casinos will emerge making it worse for the players and with no insight from the government. Another drawback of the ban of the casinos is that is has left an estimate of 600.000 people without a job or income.
