Gambling Going to Zones
At the end of the last year, the deputies finally made their minds on where to evict the notorious one-armed bandits.
It is well-known that in autumn 2006 President Putin gave a direction to select four regions for them where gaming business will be able to operate. Such zones will be: Primorie in the Far East, the Republic of Altay in Siberia, Kaliningrad and Krasnodar regions in the European Russia. Nowadays gamblers will have to choose there to go gambling depending on the place of their residence. To be honest, it is not quite clear why these very regions have been selected; however, one thing is clear: gaming business in Russia will die away soon.
According to the deputies’ conception, the relocation of gambling facilities to out-of-the way places must just contribute to their development. It means they probably think that gaming business kings will chip in for laying railways there, building airports, hotels, casinos and the like, and the state will only collect taxes from all that. Eventually, they are inspired by the example of the USA which in the 19th century evicted all gambling facilities to the wilderness of Nevada.
But the problem is that it is not the 19th century now. It is hard to imagine people from, say, Nefteugansk ir Nizhnevartovsk going gambling to the Republic of Altay where there are neither airports nor regular railway coverage; all in all, there is nothing for the kind of rest they are seeking. It will be easier and cheaper for them to go to Las Vegas (the real one) or follow the example of Russian literature classics and go to Monaco. After all, in the expanses of CIS gaming business is all right as well. One can not but agree that from, say, Belgorod, Oryol or Moscow it is easier to reach Ukraine than Kaliningrad region.
An employee of a gaming business firm says that they are not even planning to invest anything in these zones so far. “We have two years for regular operations, and then we’ll see,” he shared their plans. And the elections are coming: under such conditions the change of power is quite possible, and the previous conceptions may change, too.
On the one hand, the current policy of authorities with regards to gaming business is understandable. Operators of this market, pursuing superprofits, have not thought on ennobling it in any way. Except major players who stuck to the rules there used to be a number of small ones who were busy with mere robbing people of their money. There were no internal guiding lines to comply with while placing slot machines. They were placed at railway stations, in supermarkets, at underground stations, and even in bakeries. All that caused an inflammation of gambling addiction, a disease equal to alcohol addiction in its destructive features.
Apart from all the rest, the Russian gaming business itself is highly criminalized. it makes no secret that many criminal gangs, including ethnic ones, owned casinos and slot machine parlours. The money gained from this business were used not only for bribing the officials who covered all that up but also for financing illegal armed units in the North Caucasus. And it resulted in the fact that the news about the virtual ban on gaming business within Russia was perceived mostly positively.
Moreover, originally the law on restricting gaming business was initiated by a major gaming structure with the view of eliminating its competitors. If you read the initial editions of the document, you will find out that many of them not only provided no restrictions for gaming business but also, on the contrary, gave casinos and slot machine parlours additional rights in some things. These games attracted the attention of the top state officials, and all resulted in a failure…
And what shall gambling operators do under the conditions suggested? Well, first of all, change the scope of activities. In this sector, quite an essential capital has been accumulated, and this money will allow former casino and slot machine parlour owners to set up, say, restaurants or shopping centres. Some of them may do it, but they will be in the minority.
The second way is a more intense developing of CIS and Baltic countries, which, due to any reasons, have not been paid enough attention to until recently. Large chain companies may act in this way. Apart from the competition with each other, they will have to fight local chains supported by the authorities. However, as we know, the support of authorities, especially of the local ones, may be bought, and Russian businessmen have at least the same amounts of money as their Ukrainian or Baltic colleagues.
And, finally, the third way implies that those who’ll take it have a certain kind of strategic thinking, an ability to foresee vistas of technical development and modern people’s interests. We mean Internet casinos which are now booming. In the new law, there is a separate prohibition for such activities. But if the gaming server is not located in Russia and not even registered in Russian domain area, the law will not be applied to it. The deputies are physically unable to do anything about it. That is why a part of Russian gambling operators will go to the virtual space, over which Russian legislators can have little control.
The potential target audience of this business is really vast. The majority of people have computers nowadays, and for those who have not acquired ones yet or due to something can not play from home or from the office, Internet clubs may be arranged. And the owner of a club can not be legally liable for the things its visitors are occupied with. It is their personal business.
Well, and eventually a part of gaming market will go underground and become absolutely criminal, with all resulting consequences, such as cheaters, sharpers, swindlers, etc. And any tavern may become a gaming den, which will pay no taxes to the state. They might have to pay to the local militia only, and this is just peanuts.
So, we can claim that the state, while pursuing a noble goal, has made a lot of blunders again. It is obvious that no one will go to the zones provided by the law. Well-to-do gamblers will squander their money abroad, and those who do not have lots of money will walk into cheaters’ arms. That’s because not everyone in our country is ready to touch high technologies.