WAAG: Russia: The People
The land and online casino gambling legislation in Russia has gained a lot of
critics over the past year as the full impact of the controversial legislation
comes to light. On a broad level the banning of land and online casinos from
Russia will have a dramatic impact on the amount of revenue coming into the
Russian government to fund social programs. But on a much deeper note, Valdimir
Putin’s 2006 gambling legislation (which just came into full effect in July
2009) has deeply impacted the lives of millions of Russians who have worked
within the Russian land casino gambling industry for decades. Russia implemented
the land gambling ban in July of this year and within just a matter of days
hundreds of thousands of Russians found themselves unemployed in an uncertain
economy.
The online casinos have been banned in Russia for several years now and there
was actually very little of a viable market for the gambling sites because of
the strong growth of the land gambling industry. Land gambling venues were
incredibly popular and the land venues ranged from hole-in-the wall slot parlors
to majorly ritzy casinos. The lucrative gambling industry provided Russians with
a widely varied range of unskilled and skilled jobs, with countless numbers of
specialty jobs and other key employment opportunities that provided financial
support for Russians working at the land casino venues.
With the land venues now closed and the online casinos picking up the slack,
there are simply no gambling related jobs left in Russia. Those who were skilled
in gambling industry specific jobs no longer have opportunities for high paying.
Even if the recently unemployed Russians were willing to move to the remote
legal gambling zones it will be several years before any of the major gambling
companies reopen and reestablish. |