As of July 1, 2007, all gambling establishments not complying with the federal law on state regulation of the gaming business were shut down.
Under the law, the operators of casinos and slot halls must own net assets worth at least RUR600mn ($23.53 mn, or €17.15mn), and bookies, RUR100mn ($3.92mn, or €2.86mn). A casino must have an area of no less than 800 sq m and at least ten tables, and a slot hall must be at least 100 sq m large and have at least 50 slot machines.
In this way, they will continue operation until June 30, 2009, when all gambling establishments are to be moved to the four specially allotted gaming zones.
Over 30 Russian regions (including the Arkhangelsk, Belgorod, Kurgan, Omsk and Chelyabinsk regions, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and nearly all regions of the North Caucasus) began shutting down gambling facilities in their territories ahead of schedule, before July 1. The Republic of Tatarstan in the Volga area and Chechnya in the North Caucasus banned the gaming business before the adoption of the federal law.
Boris Belotserkovsky, head of the Unicum group of gaming equipment manufacturers and co-owner of Ritzio Entertainment Group, East Europe’s largest gaming holding, said that about two-thirds of all gaming operators had disappeared from the Russian market by July 1.
The number of casinos in Moscow went down from 49 to 30 and the number of slot halls from 822 to 344, said Moscow’s former deputy mayor Iosif Ordzhonikidze.
According to his data, about 150,000 people were employed in the gaming sphere in Moscow. Now the city authorities will have to find new jobs for them.
Observers say that the powerful PR campaign held in this country against slot machines and “one-armed bandits” was organised by major gaming operators.
By opposing a “civilised gaming business” to spontaneous street gambling, they tried to direct their protest into the right channel and to divide the market by ousting minor operators. In general, they have achieved their aim. The situation in Russia’s future Las Vegases is developing in different ways.
Kaliningrad Kaliningrad, the capital city of Russia’s northwest exclave on the Baltic Sea, held the presentation of its project for the Yantarny Bereg (Amber Coast) gaming zone, which was attended by Russia’s former Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref.
The project plans were worked out by the US architectural company IdeAttack, which designed entertainment centres in Las Vegas, Shanghai, Qatar and Bahrain. The gaming zone will occupy 5 sq km in a vacant area near the village of Okunevo. They expect that the huge construction project launched on July 1 will create about 20,000 jobs.
However, some people regard the gaming zone as “a nest of vice” that can sharply raise the level of crime, prostitution and drug trafficking in the region.
Maritime Territory Passions are not running high in the Maritime Territory (Russia’s Far East), which will host another gaming zone.
Work has not yet been started there.
Cape Cherepakha on the Pacific Coast, where the gaming zone is to be situated, is 80 km from Vladivostok and 40 km from the international airport. According to Mikhail Kulakov, head of the Gaming Business Association in the Maritime Territory, it is hardly possible to establish a gaming centre in Cape Cherepakha by the stipulated deadline – July 1, 2009.
It is not known what businessmen in Hong Kong and Macao thought about the presentation, but when experts were selecting sites for gaming zones in Russia, they named the Maritime Territory as the most promising site, especially for Asian investors. However, they say that serious marketing studies and a clear cost recovery scheme are necessary in order to attract capital for the project; otherwise the investors’ interest will remain hypothetical.
Altai Territory The situation in the Altai Territory (southwest Siberia) seems clearer, especially after the presentation of its Las Vegas Project at the 11th International Economic Forum in St Petersburg last June. The designers intend to site the gaming zone in the foothills of the Altai mountains, probably in Smolenskoye.
It will occupy an area of around 100 sq km (about 39 sq miles).
A complex of modern high rises will stand there around a 36-floor administrative building that will house an office of the Federal Agency for Gaming Zones.
The architectural complex will include a cascade of artificial lakes. The zone will have eleven gambling centres for 500- 800 people each. Apart from gambling halls, there will be four- and five-star hotels, restaurants and shops.
For now, poor roads make it difficult to get to the village of Solonovka selected as the site for the future gaming zone.
The place is located 75 km from the nearest city of Biysk and 440 km from the Novosibirsk airport.
Rostov Region and Krasnodar Territory The Rostov Region and the Krasnodar Territory (both located in the south of European Russia), which will have a common gaming zone and have moved ahead of all other regions in its establishment, reported that investment in the infrastructure of the zone would amount to RUR60bn ($2.34bn, or €1.72bn), to be split equally between the two partners.
The zone will be sited on the border of the Azov District of the Rostov Region and the Shcherbinovsky District of the Krasnodar Territory and occupy an area of 2,000 hectares (1,000 hectares in each region).
On January 30, Vladimir Chub and Alexander Tkachev, the governors of the regions that will co-host the future gaming zone, signed an agreement on the rules for managing it. A coordinating council has been set up. The management of the construction process will be later turned over to a joint-stock company specially established for this purpose.
Businessmen who profit from gambling continue building and expanding their facilities in central districts of large and rich cities. They can gain quite a lot in the two years left before the scheduled relocation of gaming businesses. What will happen next is not their concern.
