It seemed a rather innocuous anti-gambling demo. About 200 people demonstrated against casinos at a Moscow bridge early last week, before the opening of the city’s summer expo World of Games, and as the demo made front page news, delegates at the event wondered what the fuss was about. However, when in Russia beware of small organizations. After all, the Bolsheviks were a small group that took power and established the Soviet Union nearly 90 years ago.

Now it appears that the flourishing gaming industry in the country is beginning to get political resistance, as Pravda, the leading Russian daily, reports that: “Russian authorities, mayors, parliamentarians, high-ranking politicians, are launching a real struggle against the gambling industry.” It seems that tougher days for the industry are certain to come.

Electronic gaming devices proliferate in the major Russian cities, reaching 63,000 units in Moscow alone, where they were installed totally against the law in any outlet that attracted a crowd, like cinemas, shops, cafes and markets. Local authorities in Moscow, St Petersburg, Volgograd, etc. have decided to act and remove a large number of so-called slot game machines, known in Russia as "slot-pillars."

In the last two years, the number of casinos has doubled in Moscow to 56 operations, with the ensuing growth in the number of gambling machines. Now Deputy Chairman of the Moscow City Council (Duma), Andrey Metelsky, believes that there should be no gambling establishments in Moscow at all, and said: “We do not want any gambling establishments in Moscow. Russia is large, and there can be other places found for those who wish to run this business. There is no need to do it in big cities.”

According to Metelsky, license-obtaining rules should be toughened, and the Moscow administration has unexpectedly supported the initiative to restrict the gambling business. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has been quoted as calling the growing gambling industry “total perversion and moral degradation.” Luzhkov said that he would be ready to both support and defend any radical solution to solve the gambling problem.

State Duma deputy Alexander Lebedev and his colleagues have introduced a new draft law to the parliament about gambling establishments. According to the draft law such establishments cannot be located either in townships or even on the outskirts of Moscow, and Boris Gryzlov, the parliament speaker, said that the document would be reviewed in the near future.

The successful start of the anti-gambling attack probably means that it has been approved by the Kremlin administration too. The efforts have already brought positive results in the Belgorod region of Russia, where the regional government approved a law in 2004 that ordered the removal of all casinos and gambling clubs from the cities and towns of the region. Businessmen tried to appeal to the Courts, but their attempts failed.

Campaigning against the casinos, the Vedomosti newspaper has stated that similar practices exist in many countries of the European Union, adding that the Moscow gambling business does look indecent against the background of other European capitals. Now Pravda has got on the bandwagon and said that: “The process to pass the above-mentioned law would also be a good test for Moscow deputies. If they vote against the law, it would imply their strong corruptive ties with owners of the Moscow gambling business.” (E-06.16.05)

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