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WAAG: Russia: Government

Vladimir Putin did not make a lot of friends within the land and online casino gambling industry with his 2006 legislation that targeted the whole of the gambling industry. Earlier this year Putin’s planned enforcement of the legislation for summer 2009 was touted as far-fetched and unlikely. Unfortunately for the thousands of slots parlors and land casinos, Putin’s plan did take effect and employees all across Russia were laid off in July 2009 as all of the gambling companies were forced to close down their establishments and move gambling related businesses to any of the four remote regions that are now open for gambling activity.

Russia’s gambling industry has had its ups and downs and faced claims of corruption and a lawless business culture, but many argue that an appropriate solution was not to close down the casinos (and give way to a growing illegal online gambling industry). The land gambling industry in Russia supplied roughly half a million jobs and as the Russian enforcement laws came into effect in July the vast majority of these jobs were made redundant and unemployment rates have soared. Particularly questionable was the government’s decision to implement this ban during an economic recession, when jobs are already scarce.

Putin claims that these new gambling measures were specifically implemented to address the growing levels of problem and addictive gambling in the country. Across the globe land and online casinos are being questioned for the role they play in underage and problem gambling, but general consensus in the global community agrees that banning an industry is far from effective. The people of Russia have greatly objected to Putin’s new gambling laws, but unfortunately that protest has done little to stop the process and Putin’s land and online casino gambling laws are rapidly gaining strength as enforcement efforts increase.