The State Duma lower house has named the regions where gambling is to be located in Russia. It has also recommended that the House approve the second reading of the bill that was approved in a first reading on 15 November. If passed into law, the new Russian regulations will mean that only two gambling areas will be allowed to operate in residential areas and two in ‘special’ regions.

There regions that have been named as gambling locations are the Maritime region, located between China and the Sea of Japan to the east; Kaliningrad on the south coast of the Baltic Sea with a population of just over 930,000; Altai Territory in Western Siberia with a population of 2.7 million; Rostov with 4.4 million population at some 1,200 km south of Moscow and Krasnodar Territory in the Chechnya, Northern Ossetia region. The bill will also impose other restrictions on gambling activity.

In the two residential areas casinos must be a minimum 800 sq m with 100 sq m for gaming machines. The venues must be non-governmental and non-municipal and must have minimum assets of 600 million roubles (US$ million). All operations that do not conform to this must close by 1 July 2007. Those that conform but are outside the allocated gambling zones must close by 1 January 2009. (E-12.14.06)

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