Deputies of the RF State Duma believe that gaming zones law may be cancelled
The deputies of the RF State Duma – members of the interfaction group “Our Capital City” – declared at the press conference on Monday that after the elections the laws restricting gaming business may be modified.
“I am not really sure that these laws will not be modified”, said Sergei Glotov. “The deputies are inclined to change the legislation too often. Amendments to the Tax Code have been made 25 times lately. There will be the Duma and presidential elections, and after them the tack will possibly be changed”.
And Alexander Lebedev said that “interests of Moscow bureaucracy and gambling operators have become tightly entangled in the last decade”. The deputy has information that gambling facility owners have made a deal with capital officials. It implies that the deputies of the future Duma, connected with Moscow authorities, will lobby the mitigation of the gaming law to let these facilities remain in Moscow.
According to Sergei Glotov, gambling operators have another loophole due to which they can hope that their rights will not be impaired that hard.
“Our local legislation is developing rapidly. In this area, they do whatever they want”, said Glotov.
However, many regional parliaments pass the laws which complicate gambling operators` lives. The federal legislation provides for relocating all gambling facilities from Russian territories to the 4 zones fro July 1st 2009 only. And in 10 regions the facilities will be banned as early as from July 1st, 2007. Among them there are Archangel, Kostroma, Lipetsk and Smolensk regions, Cabardino-Balcaria, Udmirtia and Tchuvashia. In some regions, for example, in Kurgan and Kursk, slot machine hall operations will be banned from July 1st, 2007.
According to Glotov, now there are 773 gambling facilities left in Moscow. The enlargement process began in this industry after they started closing smaller casinos and slot locations.
IA ANN