Ho plans Russian casino

The sucking sound of discretionary income being sucked up by Predatory Gambling is almost audible!

Ho plans Russian casino

July 4, 2013

Lawrence Ho, the co-chairman of Macau casino operator Melco Crown Entertainment, is planning a gambling resort on the outskirts of Vladivostok in Russia.

The planned casino will be built in Primorye, an eastern region bordering China and Korea, and is scheduled to open in the second half of next year.

Summit Ascent Holdings, a Hong Kong-based company that is 37 per cent owned by Ho, signed a preliminary agreement to invest in a “gaming and resort development project in the Russian Federation,” according to the company’s June 28 filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The businessman, a son of gambling magnate Stanley Ho, has been expanding his casino business at home and overseas. In the Philippines, Melco Crown is partnering with Belle Corp, the company controlled by billionaire Henry Sy, to build a casino resort complex in Manila, the capital city of the south-east Asian country.

The Manila casino is expected to cost US$1bn. Melco Crown is also investing $2bn in developing a brand new casino resort in Macau, to be called Studio City, which is expected to open in the middle of 2015.

Summit Ascent’s preliminary agreement on the Russian casino is “subject to fulfilment of a number of conditions including legal, accounting and construction due diligence,” the company said in the June 28 statement. It also needs a definitive investment agreement on or before August 15, it said.

That announcement didn’t disclose the location of the proposed casino resort.

The planned casino will be built in Primorye, an eastern region bordering China and Korea, and is scheduled to open in the second half of next year. The casino will be one of the first in Russia after the country in 2009 banned casino gambling outside four special zones.



http://www.intergameonline.com/casino/news/9733/ho-plans-russian-casino

 

Gambling addicts may be ruled 'incompetent'

Gambling addicts may be ruled 'incompetent' by amended Russian law
Published: 06 January, 2013

A roulette in the Orakul entertainment center in the Azov City gambling zone (RIA Novosti / Mikhail Mokrushin)

Gambling in Russia may now result in something more serious than simple bankruptcy. The country's lawmakers have adopted amendments stipulating that gambling addiction is a legal basis for restricting a person's rights and freedoms.

­Individuals who put their family into difficult financial situations due to a gambling addiction, alcohol abuse or drug addiction may be ruled incompetent, the amended legislation stated.

The incompetent person would then be put under guardianship. The guardian would have the responsibility of dispensing that individual's income, whether it was a salary, pension or other form of income. The individual would still be allowed to carry out minor daily transactions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the amendments on Friday, which will come into effect as soon as they are published.

Similar legislation was introduced in Ukraine last year: If an individual there is found incompetent due to a gambling addiction, their relatives may seek guardianship and control over their financial transactions.

In other countries, gambling addiction is fought in less radical ways, such as counseling, peer-support programs and other forms of therapy.

Russia launched a war on gambling in 2009 when the country's lawmakers banned all casinos and gambling clubs across Russia. Four legal gambling zones were established in Vladivostok, Krasnodar Region, Kaliningrad and Altai Region.

The ban was a severe blow to the country's gambling industry, with many casinos moving abroad and others going underground.

http://rt.com/news/gambling-addiction-russian-law-441/

Tough love humbles gambling addicts, +25% SUICIDE

Nábělek added that most gamblers don't come to their senses until they "hit bottom" - which, for over 25%, involves attempted suicide.

For Ján, suicide seemed the only option after a month-long orgy of gambling left him, his wife, son and dog without a home. When the anti-depressants and vodka he swallowed failed to kill him - one senses this, although Ján never says it - he was finally ready to admit he had a problem he couldn't control.

Any credible article about GAMBLING ADDICTION includes SUICIDE, the Gambling Industry's DIRTY LITTLE SECRET.

It's universal.

It represents the government's betrayal to its citizens for the "Common Good."

Tough love humbles gambling addicts

Gambling, says Health Minister Kováč, is a "defect in behaviour".photo: Ján Svrček

5 Mar 2001 Lucia Nicholsonová

BANSKÁ BYSTRICA: Forty-five year-old Ján K. sat quietly in a group therapy session February 14 as his daughter described how his gambling addiction had begun, and how it had led to her father's attempted suicide, tearing his family apart. When she finished, the therapist rapped out in a cold voice, "So, Ján, does it feel good to hear how you screwed up your kids?"

Ján looked for a moment as if he might protest or walk out, but in the end he just hung his head.

It's an experience shared by the seven other patients in Ján's therapy session. During their seven week treatment at the special wing for pathological gamblers at central Slovakia's Banská Bystrica hospital, the patients are constantly reminded that no one pities them - not even their closest relatives. They are also taught not to pity themselves, despite the personal devastation many have experienced, and the rigour of the daily therapy they must undergo.

Life in the gambling addicts' wing in many ways resembles military boot camp. Reveille is before seven, followed by callisthenics and cleaning chores (showers, toilets, floors). Performance of these tasks is supervised by a grim-faced nurse, who awards demerit points for the slightest infraction. Patients who collect three demerit points in one day - for additional faults such as failing to say 'please' or 'thank-you' - are banned from smoking for several days, have their free time reduced, and are not allowed to write letters.

Ján, who smokes but has not been allowed a cigarette for four days, says he now includes a 'thank you' and 'please' with every sentence in order to be on the right side of the law. "At the beginning it was so tough I didn't know if I could handle it, but I've realised this course is the only way to stop gambling," he said, speaking in an undertone to avoid attracting the nurse's gaze.

But it's still bitterly tough. On this Valentine's Day, when Ján's daughter has travelled 200 kilometres to visit him, the group therapist who spoke so harshly to him in session also forbids him to spend any time alone with her.

"I'm not going to let you, Ján, because I want you to really feel what it must have been like for her when she needed you, but you were out gambling."

Ján's chin quivers slightly as he manages a husky "yes, thank you ma'am."

The lucky ones

As unhappy as he is, Ján never forgets that he is one of the lucky few - the waiting list for the Banská Bystrica gambler's clinic is three months long.

The clinic was founded in 1993, the first of its kind in Slovakia. Since then, over 400 gamblers have been treated there; since the gambling ward is only a small part of the hospital's psychiatric wing, the number of beds is limited to eight.

No statistics in Slovakia are kept on how many gambling addicts there are, but doctors say that demand for treatment at the clinic is steadily increasing. To avoid wasting time on hopeless cases, Banská Bystrica takes only those patients who are firmly convinced they need treatment.

"If gamblers have any doubts about the need for treatment, the whole process is a waste of time," said Ludvík Nábělek, the director of the clinic. "It takes gamblers a long time to realise they are addicted and that they need specialised help. Family members can play an important role here, especially when they are tired of being stolen from, lied to and tormented."

Nábělek added that most gamblers don't come to their senses until they "hit bottom" - which, for over 25%, involves attempted suicide.

For Ján, suicide seemed the only option after a month-long orgy of gambling left him, his wife, son and dog without a home. When the anti-depressants and vodka he swallowed failed to kill him - one senses this, although Ján never says it - he was finally ready to admit he had a problem he couldn't control.

Although gambling addiction is classified by psychiatrists as an 'impulse control disorder', along with kleptomania and compulsive arson, it has far more in common with drug or alcohol addiction, says Nábělek.

But until now, he claims, the state has virtually ignored gambling addiction as a problem, not considering it on the same level as drug and alcohol dependency. Nábělek describes the state as "a passive observer of the group of fanatics who are trying to fight gambling addiction and other dependencies", and accuses the government of not taking drugs, alcohol and slot machines seriously enough.

"The state fights addiction only formally," he says. "It doesn't have money even for the basic care and drugs. The environment is corrupt, and with the state insurance firms being stripped of assets, money doesn't even come for hospitals, never mind clinics. Anti-drug funds are distributed among various pseudo-organisations which pretend to be fighting addiction."

The doctor also blames weak law enforcement for much of Slovakia's addiction problems.

"If someone here finally decided to enforce the law, according to which kids under 18 can't use alcohol, we wouldn't be seeing 15 year-old alcoholics. And if we really wanted to prevent kids from playing on slot machines, we could prevent them - and then I wouldn't be treating 16 year-old gambling addicts. But it seems that the state doesn't care about anything any more."

Health Minister Roman Kováč, responding to questions from The Slovak Spectator by fax, said that the country had been successful in fighting drug dependencies, but added "pathological gambling is a defect in behavior. It is clearly a behavioral issue that has many similar characteristics to this group [drug and alcohol addicts], but is a part of a different group of psychological defects.

"Our psychiatric health institutions help people with this problem in general," he continued, "especially in cases when the gambling is combined with alcohol."

Back in Banská Bystrica, Ján has three weeks of treatment to go, before he is released to an uncertain future. "I'm never going to play again," he says with evident emotion. "It's taken my whole life. But it's going to be hard - getting a job, finding somewhere to live. I've screwed it all up, and I'm afraid."
According to Nábělek, he has reason to be. "For recovering gamblers, like alcoholics, it's enough to slip just once and the whole process starts again," he said. "We often see these people back two or three times before it's finally over."

http://spectator.sme.sk/articles/view/280/1/

....renews call for ban on gambling

New book series renews call for ban on gambling

4/2/2009 | Jan Dennis, Business & Law Editor

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Banning gambling is among the best bets to reverse a deep recession that has crippled the global economy, according to a new collection of books that offer the most comprehensive analysis ever on the financial perils of wagering.

        John W. Kindt, a nationally known gambling critic, is a contributing author and editor of the three-volume United States International Gambling Report Series, which calls for a ban on gambling. | Photo courtesy College of Business

 

The United States International Gambling Report Series recommends the United States and other countries follow Russia’s lead, shuttering casinos that undermine economic growth and cost taxpayers at least $3 for every $1 in benefits as a result of increased bankruptcies, crime and gambling addictions.

“What do the Russians know that is still eluding U.S. government officials?” says University of Illinois professor John W. Kindt, a nationally known gambling critic and contributing author and editor of the three-volume series. “They know that you can’t gamble yourself to prosperity. It actually makes everything worse.”

Personal bankruptcies soar 18 to 42 percent in areas with casinos, crime jumps 10 percent and rates for new addicted gamblers double, according to the nearly 3,000-page series, which compiles decades of academic and government research on gambling and its costs to society.

While adding costs for government programs, gambling also siphons money away from the traditional consumer economy, where an economic “multiplier effect” triples the value of every dollar spent by creating jobs that supply goods and services, research shows.

“Money spent on gambling is not spent on cars, refrigerators, computers and other consumer products,” Kindt said. “Money that goes into gambling is primarily used to build more casinos, which just compounds the negative economic impact.”

The series predicts economic growth will soon rebound in Russia, which virtually abolished legal gambling by shutting down 2,230 casinos in 2006-07 after two decades of expansion that mirrored the rise of gambling in the U.S.

Kindt, a professor of business and legal policy, hopes the U.S. will consider following suit as it seeks to halt the nation’s deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

“They’re looking for solutions, and this is an obvious solution,” he said. “It’s in every economic textbook. You can’t gamble your way to prosperity. It creates no products or new jobs, so we need to get rid of gambling to pump-prime the economy.”

The U.S. International Gambling Report Series is the first academic collection to take a comprehensive look at gambling, according to publisher William S. Hein & Co., based in Buffalo, N.Y.

Five years in the making, the vast collection of academic and government reports was compiled by the Research Editors Doctoral Directorate on Gambling, a loosely knit group of doctoral researchers initially based at the U. of I.

“Gambling: Executive Summaries and Recommendations” kicks off the three-volume series, renewing calls to outlaw gambling that have mounted since the 1999 U.S. National Gambling Impact Study Commission sought a moratorium on gambling expansion.

The remaining volumes reprint hundreds of reports that explore specific consequences of gaming – “Gambling With National Security, Terrorism and Military Readiness” and “Gambling With Crime, Destabilized Economies and Financial Systems.”

Kindt says the exhaustive collection of research will aid the public and policy makers when calls to curtail gambling spark renewed debate with the gambling industry and its powerful lobby.

“It’s simply a question of whether the American public is going to listen to special interest groups or if they’re going to demand that their government focus on public health, safety and welfare,” Kindt said. “That’s between the public and their elected officials. All we can do is present the research.”


http://news.illinois.edu/news/09/0402gambling.html

Putin Gets No Respect From Poker Players in Moscow Resisting Gambling Ban

Gambling venues were outlawed in Russia when it was determined that they suck the economic vitality out of the economy. The rest of the world hasn't figured that out yet.

Putin Gets No Respect From Poker Players in Moscow Resisting Gambling Ban
By Anastasia Ustinova and Ilya Arkhipov - Dec 17, 2010

Nikolai nods to the camouflaged guards as he enters a nightclub in central Moscow before heading to a room tucked behind a glass wall.

It’s shortly before 10 p.m. on a Tuesday. The push of a button opens a wooden door to a smoke-filled parlor packed with poker players. The card game was considered a sport until Prime Minister Vladimir Putin decided last year to prohibit gambling in all but Russia’s furthest reaches.

The ban succeeded only in driving “decent people into the dark,” Nikolai, a name he chose to use because of fear of repercussions, said as he stacked 20,000 rubles ($650) of chips on a blue felt table. He pointed to a poster advertising a poker tournament with 600,000 rubles of prize money.

Russia’s purge against gambling is sending poker underground just as the casino industry expands globally. Gaming revenue will increase 57 percent worldwide to $157 billion by 2014, the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP estimated in a report published last week.

Why parlors like the ones Nikolai frequents are still operating is an issue of increasing frustration for President Dmitry Medvedev, who has taken the lead from Putin in the public campaign against gambling. As president in 2006, Putin called for casinos to be shut to reduce addiction and clamp down on organized crime. He set up four special zones for gambling that have so far remained undeveloped.

Shut Down

“Russia is quite unique because it went against the trend globally,” said Laurie Korpi, the head regulatory analyst at London-based GamblingCompliance, an industry research firm. “I can’t think of many countries which would have an established gambling industry that pays taxes and then overnight would basically just close the door.”

Medvedev ordered an investigation last month into why Moscow officials haven’t shut down what city hall itself says are more than 100 illegal gambling halls. The ban on poker came into effect on July 1, 2009, two years after it became a sport.

The club hosting Nikolai includes three halls, a bar and cash desk and the focus is poker, not discussion. Players around seven tables in one hall nibble on savory snacks and sweets and mainly drink tea, rarely talking.

Medvedev yesterday ordered Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to investigate illicit gambling dens. “We need to finish the task of cracking down on illegal casinos,” Medvedev said at a government meeting in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow. “This is an illegal business and it’s a crime.”

24 Hour Raids

Sobyanin, Putin’s former chief of staff, plans to create special units that will be on call to raid gambling halls 24 hours a day. Medvedev fired Sobyanin’s predecessor, Yuri Luzhkov, in September after 18 years in power, citing “lack of confidence.”

“I think we will sort out the mess within a month,” Sobyanin told Medvedev yesterday.

More than 3,000 illegal betting parlors have been closed across Russia so far this year and many still operate outside the law, said Colonel Vladimir Krivosheev of the Interior Ministry’s economic safety division.

“We raided a hall with slot machines in a basement of a house in the suburbs of Moscow once and there were rats everywhere,” he said in an interview. “People kept playing even after the squad raided the premises.”

Dungeon Bound?

Nikolai, who learned karate in the 1980s to defy a Soviet- era ban, keeps in touch with his poker partners and parlor managers by text message as they move around Moscow to avoid raids. He lost 20,000 rubles of chips within half an hour before winning 61,000 rubles with his second 20,000 ruble stake. He then headed to the second venue of the night, this one glitzier, with dark leather walls lit by deep red lights.

“I’ve got phone numbers for about 40 places, and about 20 percent of them have been shut down in the past two years,” said Nikolai, 50. “If this keeps up, where are the decent people supposed to go to relax, a dungeon?”

The four zones Putin created for legal gambling are near the borders of North Korea, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and in the exclave of Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania. Before then, Russia had 360,000 slot machines, more than any country except Japan and the U.S., according to a 2008 report by London- based research group Taylor Nelson Sofres Plc.

‘Irrational Idea’

“One of the most dramatic developments in 2009 and 2010 was the collapse in the Russian market, which was essentially shut down by regulatory changes in the latter half of 2009,” PricewaterhouseCoopers said in its Dec.7 report.

The company predicted global casino gaming revenue will grow at a 9.3 percent annual rate during the five years to 2014 from $100.5 billion in 2009.

The Russian government shouldn’t be under any illusions as to the difficulties of curtailing gambling in a country where the industry was doubling every couple of years, reaching about $7 billion in 2008, said Michael Boettcher, chief executive officer of Storm International, the country’s biggest casino operator before the prohibition.

Storm, based in Moscow, has all but abandoned Russia and opened casinos in countries including Armenia, Belarus and Mexico because few gaming companies or gamblers have shown much interest in traveling to the new zones, Boettcher said.

Crime, Suicide

“It was an ill-conceived and irrational idea born more out of politics than common sense,” Boettcher said by e-mail. “This disaster could have been averted by talking to either the existing operators inside Russia or consulting with another, independent, gaming expert from outside the country.”

Russia had 3 million gambling addicts, or 2.1 percent of the population, according to a 2008 estimate by NarcoDen, a Moscow-based rehabilitation specialist.

The Public Chamber, set up by Putin to scrutinize legislation, said the gambling halls were to blame for “destruction of families, crimes against people, theft and robbery, psychological illness, a large number of suicides,” according to a 2006 statement.

As he moved to his third and final venue of the night around 2 a.m., a three-story office building, Nikolai said there are far worse scourges on society than playing poker.

“There are 50 times more saunas, which are basically brothels, than there are gambling halls in Moscow,” said Nikolai. “And no one cares about them.”

...[casinos] were killing their economy....

When Russia closed down thousands of casinos in 2009, that nation’s economy improved, says Kindt. “Crime, bankruptcy, and gambling addiction were on the rise,” he notes. “That’s why Russia shut down the casinos. And most important, they [casinos] were killing their economy.”

The Casino Effect
Written by Erik Bojnansky - BT Senior Writer
According to professor John Kindt, it is destructive -- always and without exception

According to John Warren Kindt, a professor of business and legal policy at the University of Illinois, the City of Miami will experience a burst of economic activity if the Genting Group, a Malaysian-based corporation, wins the right to build Resorts World Miami, a $3.8 billion casino complex where the Miami Herald building and Omni Mall now stand.

“Generally there is a bump lasting about two to three years,” says Kindt, who has studied casinos for two decades. “There are new construction jobs and a lot of activity as money is coming in.”

But Kindt warns that the bump won’t last: “Once the project is completed, and slot machines come in, [the casino] takes everything.”

After that Miami will lose jobs as businesses within a 35-mile radius of casinos like Resorts World Miami see their profits shrink, says Kindt, thanks to local residents gambling away their wages, mainly at slot machines.

Crimes committed by gambling addicts will increase nine percent every year while sales-tax revenues decline. Casinos will hire vast armies of lobbyists and contribute generously to the campaigns of pro-casino politicians, enabling them to lower taxes charged on their slot machines and to rewrite legislation to fulfill their needs. Casinos, Kindt contends, may even get local government to seize private property through eminent domain, just as they have in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, in order to expand their operations.

“You are going to find that they [casino owners] will have the power,” says Kindt. “They change things to their benefit. Initially there will be all these restrictions, but they will drop away. In most states [with casinos], it takes a couple of years.”

Kindt issued such dire warnings to a Miami audience this past December, during a forum on casino resorts. The gathering was hosted by the Beacon Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the economic development of Miami-Dade County.

A faculty member of the University of Illinois’s School of Business since 1978, Kindt has written numerous papers on antitrust, tax, commercial, environmental, and international law. However, his main expertise is the economics of gambling -- from Internet poker games to lavish casinos.

He became a critic of casinos in 1992, after the gambling industry invited him and other economists to analyze their proposal for a casino in downtown Chicago. The plan, which was supposed to create thousands of new jobs and a lucrative tax source, seemed wonderful at first, Kindt remembers. But upon closer examination by the economists, the casino industry’s assertions were revealed to be wrong. “Within ten days,” says Kindt, “all my economic colleagues determined that this was a con game.”

“Certainly Kindt is a wealth of knowledge on this issue,” says Brad Swanson, vice president of corporate and strategic policies for the Florida Chamber of Commerce, an organization that has opposed casino gambling for the past 20 years. Swanson fears Miami could become another Atlantic City, where some 40 percent of independently owned restaurants closed down during the first decade of gambling in that city.

Frank Nero, president and CEO of the Beacon Council, is familiar with Atlantic City’s 1978 foray into gambling. He was New Jersey’s regional representative to the U.S. Department of Labor when casinos were being proposed.

As a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, Nero backed the proposal, but eventually saw that the gambling industry’s promises of prosperity fell short. The experience has given him an appreciation for some of Kindt’s findings: “A lot of what he says is valid. I think some of the same kind of promises that I saw at Atlantic City are being replicated here.” (The Beacon Council is officially neutral on casinos.)

A broad, meandering, rooftop lagoon is one planned feature of Resorts World Miami. Courtesy: Resorts World Miami
Nero and Swanson are worried about a pair of bills sponsored by state Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff (R-Fort Lauderdale) and state Rep. Erik Fresen (R-Miami) that would allow three “destination resorts” in Florida counties where such complexes are approved by voters. The bills would also lower the taxes charged to existing and new operators of slot machines from 35 percent to 10 percent, legalize 24-hour gambling, and remove existing prohibitions on serving complimentary alcohol to casino patrons. Bogdanoff’s bill also enables more pari-mutuels to obtain slot machines and other Las Vegas-style games such as blackjack or roulette.

If resort casinos are allowed to open their doors in Florida, Kindt predicts they will make local economies worse. “And not just worse, enormously worse,” he warns. “This is all about taking money out of Florida -- and not even back to Nevada, like most casinos, but to Malaysia.”

Christian Goode counters that the Genting Group is not like American casino companies. Goode, who is president of Resorts World Miami, claims that Genting, which operates “destination resort” casinos in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, England, and New York City, aims to attract wealthy tourists, not poor locals. “Resorts World Miami’s revenue model is built on attracting new-to-market tourists from around the world to Miami,” Goode says. “All told, we expect approximately 70 percent of our guests to be from outside the local market.”

Indeed, if Resorts World Miami is anything like the Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore, the casino will be only part of the operation. That complex includes five resort hotels, a luxury condo, a Universal Studios theme park, the Maritime Experimental Museum and Aquarium, a marine-life park, more than 60 bars and clubs, 45 stores, and beachfront villas.

Current plans for Resorts World Miami include four luxury hotels with 5200 rooms, two condo towers with 1000 units, an expansive rooftop lagoon, a sandy beach, more than 50 restaurants and clubs, 700,000 square feet of convention meeting space, and a multimedia center.

So far Genting has invested more than $400 million buying up 30 acres of property along the Biscayne Corridor, according to the New York Times . That figure includes the $236 million Genting spent last year for 14 acres of waterfront land, including the Miami Herald’s building.

Genting also paid $206 million to gain control of the 900,000-square-foot Omni Mall, a 2300-space parking garage, and the adjoining 525-room Hilton hotel.

Aside from the land purchases, Genting has given $10,000 each to political action committees aligned with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Joe Martinez, the Miami Herald reported. Genting also funneled $628,320 to the state Republican and Democratic parties and hired at least two dozen lobbying firms, the New York Times reported.

Goode assures that a “world-class destination-resort experience with a gaming amenity” will attract between two and three million people to Miami each year. “We chose to invest in Miami because of what’s already here,” Goode says. “Our ‘export business model’ thrives because the resort is integrated within a city that already has strong tourist appeal and a diverse business base. That will bring new tourists here -- and bring them back.” Goode, who previously worked at Genting’s New York City operation, promises that “destination resorts” based on Genting’s model will create up to 100,000 new jobs. HORSE MANURE!

Kindt argues that most of the jobs available to local residents will pay less than $30,000 per year. He also scoffs at the notion that Genting’s casino will attract large numbers of gamblers from abroad, particularly Asia: “Who in the world is going to fly from Malaysia to Miami when they have all those gambling operations in Hong Kong and Macau?”

More likely, Kindt says, is that Resorts World Miami will seek to keep as many tourism dollars as it can for itself. Since the resort’s amenities and attractions will be subsidized by gambling revenue, restaurants and hotels outside of Resorts World Miami will find it difficult to compete. “They [destination resorts] will offer free meals and free hotel rooms,” Kindt says. “The existing hotels can’t compete with free.”

Kindt also says that casino games such as poker, blackjack, and roulette are merely “window dressing” designed to draw in players. Slot machines, which include video poker and other electronic gambling machines, are at the heart of all casinos. “Every slot machine brings in a minimum of $100,000 a year,” he asserts. “Slot machines don’t create jobs -- you just dust them off. And that’s 90 percent of the money.” According to Kindt, most of that slot-machine money comes from middle-class and poor individuals living near casinos.

Each slot machine costs the surrounding community one job per year, Kindt says. In a 2003 article for the Ohio Law Review, he reported that within a newly established casino’s “feeder market,” business and personal bankruptcies increase between 18 and 42 percent, while “impulse” business transactions in the area decline by 65 percent.

“When billions of dollars are going into slot machines, where are those billions of dollars coming from?” Kindt asks. “They are no longer buying cars, refrigerators, or even food and clothing.”

South Florida is already feeling the effects of casinos and slot machines, which were approved by Broward voters in 2005 and Miami-Dade voters in 2008. Calls to the Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling have increased 57 percent over the past five years, according to an October 2011 report from the nonprofit organization.

Thirty-five percent of callers admitted to committing crimes in order to finance their gambling. Individuals who were unemployed and/or receiving public assistance made up 25 percent of the callers, a hike of 12 percent from five years ago. Potentially suicidal callers increased from 11 to 16 percent in one year. The largest chunk of callers, 46 percent, named slot machines as their primary gambling vice.

“Slot machines are known as the crack cocaine of new gamblers,” Kindt says. “When you bring in [thousands of slots] in a big place like Miami, you are going to hook tens of thousands of people, many of whom have never gambled before.”

Kindt doesn’t think slot machines are fair, either. “There needs to be a hearing under oath, investigating how the slot machines work, what the odds are, how they are regulated, if people are treated fairly or not, and if the machines can be tampered with,” Kindt says. “You need to have hearings where they actually haul in these machines and show how they work. Nobody has ever had these hearings.”

So how many slot machines will Resorts World Miami have? Goode declines to say: “We are still very early in the design stage, so it would be premature to project a count.”

This past October, Sergio Bakas, senior vice president of Arquitectonica, the Miami architecture firm tasked with designing Resorts World Miami, told the Miami Herald that the Genting resort would be among the largest casinos in the world, with 800,000 square feet of gaming and at least 8500 slot machines. Floor plans published recently by the local blog Crespo-Gram Report depicted 344,645 square feet of gaming on the first three floors of the old Omni mall alone, which could be open for business late this year if a gaming license is obtained.

Arquitectonica later said Bakas had misspoken, and that casino will have between 5000 and 6000 slot machines. Goode adds that the total gaming area for Resorts World Miami will be less than 300,000 square feet.

Even with 5000 slot machines, Resorts World Miami will dwarf the local competition. Two pari-mutuels operating in Miami, Magic City Casino and the recently reopened Casino Miami Jai-Alai, have a combined 1850 slot machines. Gulfstream Park in Hallandale has 850 slots. Calder Casino and Race Course in Miami Gardens has 1200. In west Miami-Dade, the Miccosukee casino also has 1200, while in Hollywood, the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino has 1500.

Resorts World Miami is not the only entity wanting to build a destination resort in Miami-Dade. Las Vegas Sands, a company headed by Newt Gingrich presidential campaign financier Sheldon Adelson, is interested in developing a destination resort on nine blocks of Park West land assembled by Miami Worldcenter investors. Steve Wynn, former CEO of Mirage Resorts, hopes for a casino in Miami Beach. In Miami Gardens, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross also wants to build a casino on land surrounding Dolphins Stadium.

“The scope of what Genting is proposing, and what would be allowed under the legislation, is an order of magnitude that is far greater than anything that exists here or anywhere else in America,” writes John Sowinski, an Orlando political consultant who heads NoCasinos.org, in an e-mail to the BT. “Comparing slots at a dog track, or even limited tribal gambling, to what is being proposed is like comparing a 7-Eleven the Mall of the Americas. Literally.”

In spite of the tax breaks and gambling opportunities the new bills offer to existing casinos and racetracks, the pari-mutuels and tribes have joined with churches, theme parks, restaurants, and hotels in an effort to defeat the legislation. That’s because the new resorts will cannibalize existing casinos, Kindt explains: “When a new casino comes up with flash, the other casinos tend to have liquidity problems.”

So why is Singapore still a prosperous city-state with two mega-casinos located within its borders? Because only foreigners can patronize casinos for free. Citizens and permanent residents must pay a $70 entrance fee or a $1400 annual pass to enter a casino. The hefty admission price, which is collected by the government, “discourages impulse gambling,” a Singapore official told Time magazine two years ago. To fill the casinos, promoters ferry in high-stakes gamblers, known as “whales,” from neighboring countries.

In Florida’s case, Kindt believes the tax rates charged on slot machines should be increased to at least 50 percent to help pay for the social costs he asserts will come with compulsive gambling. Moreover, he argues that the state should receive 100 percent of the slots’ revenues, as in Canada, where casino operators only collect a management fee.

The license fees contemplated for casinos are also too low, Kindt says. Under the pending legislation, a casino company wishing to build a destination resort would pay a $1 million, nonrefundable application fee, a $125 million one-time license fee (which is refundable entirely or in part if the application is rejected), and a $5 million annual fee thereafter.

License fees for pari-mutuels will be lowered from $3 million per year to $2 million.

Kindt, however, maintains that the license for a casino with more than 500 slot machines is worth at least $500 million in the open market. “If a casino has 500 slot machines, they will make a pure profit of at least a half-billion dollars in one year,” Kindt claims. “In the case of a casino in Miami, they will make a billion dollars in half a year.”

The best thing Florida could do, Kindt asserts, would be to not only scrap the destination resort bills, but also remove slots and legalized gambling entirely. When Russia closed down thousands of casinos in 2009, that nation’s economy improved, says Kindt. “Crime, bankruptcy, and gambling addiction were on the rise,” he notes. “That’s why Russia shut down the casinos. And most important, they [casinos] were killing their economy.”

If the United States were to ban casinos, Kindt believes $300 billion a year would be infused into the nation’s troubled economy.

But eliminating gambling after it has taken root is nearly impossible, Kindt concedes. “Once the gambling interests are in,” he says, “it’s like an economic cancer on the body politic. You can’t get them out. They will want to move in whatever they can, as fast as they can get in. Then, once they have their foot in the door, they will continue to push for more and more and more. You have to slam the door shut and, if you’re smart about it, cut their foot off while you’re at it.”

With or without gambling, the Genting Group is still interested in turning its new Miami property into a resort, says Goode, the company’s Miami executive. But with a gaming component, development could be achieved at a much faster pace.

“The timeline for development is significantly accelerated should a destination resort bill pass,” Goode says. “A 20-year project delivered in stages, in line with market demand, could be fully realized in three to five years if we are licensed as a destination-resort operator. That means the necessary construction and permanent jobs for Floridians can be created almost immediately.”

Gambling addiction: Sink or swim

Gambling addiction: Sink or swim

Practically any person in the world may develop ill habits and become addicted to them under certain circumstances. People may become addicted to food, alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, and many other things. The number of pathological addicts, or sick individuals, depends on the level of violence and aggression in the society. People may suffer from a lot of pressure in the modern-day society. When it happens, some simply want to escape from problems and forget about their existence. They can do that with the help of drugs, alcohol or gambling.

The best and only way to struggle with such addiction is to join the communities of people who have already suffered from it. There are many groups in Russia that support drug addicts, smokers, sexoholics and even debtors. The first groups of anonymous gamblers appeared in Russia ten years ago.

Vladimir, one of the founders of the group of anonymous gamblers, has many stories to share. "I was gambling for nearly eleven years. I was trying to quit during the last years of my addiction, but I just couldn't do it. A doctor in a rehab clinic where I was undergoing treatment once told me: "If you want to stay alive, make a community of anonymous gamblers."

In the beginning, Vladimir would simply discuss his problems with a friend of his. The two guys would just light a candle and talk. Other people began to join them afterwards. Solomon, one of the old-timers of the group, finds it difficult to say how many people have been through their group. "I can only judge on the number of booklets that we give away to our members. At first we printed 2,000 copies, then another thousand."

Such communities began to appear all across Russia soon afterwards.

Oleg Zykov, a narcologist and the president of "No to Alcoholism and Drug Addiction" charity foundation, believes that the existence of such support groups means that the society realizes that it is possible to struggle various addictions.

Gambling bars would open everywhere during the 1990s in Russia. The gambling boom led to its consequences, of course. Many gambling addicts began to commit crimes. Some would steal, others would commit suicide because of their debts.

"When I had problems in my life, I ran to the nearest casino, where I would feel safe and comfortable. I did not see any reminders of the real world there. There were not even windows or clocks there. I could spend days gambling and had to ask a casino employee to buy me fresh pairs of socks every now and then," Solomon says.

It took the society time to realize that gambling addiction is just as serious as addiction to drugs or alcohol. The majority of people, including gamblers' relatives, would perceive their behavior as lack of will. However, it became known later that the consequences of gambling addiction could be as terrifying as those of drug addiction. The state eventually decided to ban gambling clubs. However, it did not eliminate the problem. There are still many bookmaking offices and online casinos, not to mention underground gambling clubs.

Oleg Zykov believes that there is no such issue as gambling addiction. There is an issue of personality, he says. If a person wants to escape from the real world, he or she will always find a way how to do that.

Moreover, the number of pathologically addicted people is always directly connected with the level of violence in the society.

"One may find a connection between the number of prisoners and the level of narcotization in a country. The USA, China and Russia are the world leaders in terms of the number of prisoners. Consequently, the consumption of narcotics in these countries is on a high level too, just like other addictions," Oleg Zykov said.

As for positive examples, Zykov referred to Japan. There was a very high level of addiction to amphetamines in the country after WWII. The authorities later determined that it was directly connected with the number of imprisoned individuals. Many people did drugs for the first time when they were serving prison terms.

Nowadays, Japan had the lowest indicator of the number of prisoners: 47,000 inmates in the 102-million-strong country. The consumption of drugs in Japan is also the lowest. It means that it is impossible to solve a problem by banning some "bad things." People will always find alternatives. Gamblers may often become alcoholics, for example, and vice versa.

Each person is programmed to showing resistance to negative conditions of the environment. It is possible to either destroy or develop such abilities. When a person has, let's say, flu, they know what to so and where to ask for help. Addicts usually find themselves helpless, they do not know how they can help themselves. They usually find a solution when they have been through all circles of hell.

Western specialists, who study gambling addiction, say that stationary treatment of this addiction results in remission in 54 percent of cases. The percentage is higher (70-80) if a person goes to anonymous gamblers groups.

"When I broke down and came to the casino again, I realized that gambling was not giving me the excitement that I experienced before. It's because I know it's a disease," Solomon said. "When I was gambling all the time it seemed to me that there were only moral morons around me, and I hated all of them. Then I began to change. I stopped gambling and I realized that I was moving forward."

Svetlana Smetanina

Pravda.Ru

Slain Russian Journalist, Anna Politkovskaya and Gambling Addiction

Slain Russian Journalist
New Details Emerge in Politkovskaya Murder Case
By Benjamin Bidder and Matthias Schepp in Moscow

Five years after the murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow, the identities of the presumed killers are now known. A picture is emerging of a web of intrigue involving the Chechen mafia, shadowy intelligence agents and a corrupt police officer with a gambling addiction.

In Moscow, a person who reveals that he was born in Lyubertsy is likely to be regarded with suspicion or greeted with a knowing smile. The drab satellite city southeast of the capital has a reputation not unlike Corleone in Sicily, namely as a mafia stronghold.


In the 1990s, 500 thugs, notorious for armed robbery and dealing in weapons, controlled Lyubertsy's factories and nightclubs. Many of them were bodybuilders. They even had their own song, in which they touted their little city as a "center of rough physical violence." A photo of their leader, Sergei Zaitsev, nicknamed "The Rabbit," still hangs on the wall at the Titan, a local bodybuilding gym. Zaitsev was killed in a shootout in 1993.

Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov grew up in Lyubertsy, between rows of prefabricated buildings and a cosmonaut memorial, and when he chose a profession, it seemed as if he were trying to shake off his hometown's criminal reputation. He became a police officer. He was eventually promoted to lieutenant colonel and placed in charge of a secret department of the municipal office of the interior in Moscow.

Today Pavlyuchenkov, a balding, soft-spoken man, is the key figure in the investigation of the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. He is both the key witness and a co-perpetrator. Pavlyuchenkov is at the center of a web of intrigue consisting of the Chechen mafia, corrupt police officers and shadowy intelligence operatives.

Politkovskaya had documented human rights violations in Chechnya and accused then-President Vladimir Putin of "state terrorism." She was shot to death in front of the elevator in her apartment building on Oct. 7, 2006.

The Dark Side of Putin's Russia

Five years later, the names of the presumed killers are known. A Chechen who allegedly fired the deadly shots was arrested in May, and Pavlyuchenkov's arrest followed in August. It now seems possible that the killers, organizers and middlemen will end up behind bars -- no small feat in a country where most murders of journalists and civil rights activists are never solved.

There has not been sufficient proof to substantiate conspiracy theories that the Kremlin or a shady exiled oligarch was behind the murder. Instead, the trail leads to the Caucasus republic of Chechnya, the realm of the despotic ruler Ramzan Kadyrov.

Politkovskaya's cowardly murder has directed global attention to the dark side of Putin's control of the country: the muzzling of the press and the relationships between law enforcement agencies and organized crime.

Key witness Pavlyuchenkov is a case in point. The members of his special unit drive cars that police officers are never permitted to stop. The personnel department is forbidden from keeping photos and records of these employees. They work in unmarked offices in downtown Moscow, one of which is next door to the Moscow Conservatory.

Charging $100 an Hour for Shady Services

One of the official responsibilities of Pavlyuchenkov's unit was to closely shadow criminals and suspects. In fact, the law enforcement officers also took advantage of their resources and expertise to commit their own crimes. For example, Pavlyuchenkov offered the paid services of his employees to husbands spying on their wives, politicians and businesspeople seeking information about their competitors and even to his friends in the mafia. He charged $100 (€74) per hour.

Apparently the services the unit offered also included contract killings, as in the Politkovskaya case. Investigators have learned that to prepare for the murder, Pavlyuchenkov ordered at least one of his agents to track Politkovskaya and record her habits. He also recruited three Chechens, including the presumed gunman, and he is believed to have obtained the murder weapon, an Izh blank gun, which was converted to live ammunition in an underground workshop at an abandoned rail depot on the outskirts of Moscow.

Interviews with investigators, attorneys and Politkovskaya's journalist colleagues reveal a motive for Pavlyuchenkov's crimes: The lieutenant colonel was a gambling addict and constantly in financial difficulties.

Pavlyuchenkov came from a good family, with an uncle who is considered one of Russia's top neurosurgeons. But he quickly found himself on the wrong path and became addicted to gambling. His first marriage failed. His current girlfriend worked for the FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence agency, in a department headed by Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Ryaguzov, another key figure in the Politkovskaya murder case.

'Werewolf in Uniform'


In December 2006, Pavlyuchenkov's girlfriend was seriously injured in a fight in the couple's apartment in Lyubertsy. There are two versions of what happened. Some say that an argument erupted after the couple had invited a male prostitute to the apartment for sex games. Others claim that there was an attacker who had showed up at the apartment to collect debts from Pavlyuchenkov, who often accepted jobs without carrying them out.

Pavlyuchenkov constantly needed more money than he was officially earning. To supplement his income, he wangled retirees and alcoholics into selling him their apartments at low prices and then sold them at a profit. He was a "werewolf in a uniform," as Russians call such corrupt public employees.

Two years ago, judges convicted one of Pavlyuchenkov's employees in Lyubertsy to a long prison sentence. The policeman had beaten a businessman to death and burned the body. Pavlyuchenkov was also investigated, but in the end he was only questioned as a witness.

Part 2: The Chechen Connection

This was often the case. When a car carrying businessman Gennady Korban came under fire in March 2006, the authorities suspected Pavlyuchenkov as the mastermind. Nevertheless, the police colonel left the court a free man. By testifying against his accomplices, he had gone from being a suspect to a witness.

He was arrested on Aug. 23, amid mounting evidence that Pavlyuchenkov, initially a witness in the Politkovskaya murder case, was in fact one of the perpetrators. Once again, he apparently managed to strike a deal with prosecutors. He hopes to be sentenced to eight years instead of life in prison. Prosecutors have already promised him a special trial closed to the public. Instead of being treated as the mastermind of the murder, he is suddenly only an accomplice.

This has fueled speculation that Pavlyuchenkov might have powerful friends in the background, or that he was working as both a police officer and an intelligence agent. Pavlyuchenkov is the only defendant who is talking. Because he is determined to do everything in his power to obtain a light sentence, the attorney for Politkovskaya's children, Ilya, 33, and Vera, 31, fears that the officer could become a compliant tool for a judiciary controlled by the government.

The respected Moscow daily newspaper Kommersant is already claiming that Pavlyuchenkov has accused Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch living in exile in London who is one of Putin's archenemies, of being behind the killing. Politkovskaya was murdered on Putin's 54th birthday. In Russia, a country with a penchant for conspiracy theories, many see this as a sign that Berezovsky had the reporter murdered to discredit Putin at home and abroad, a charge Berezovsky denies.

The facts that have been revealed to date also tend to point to a trail within Russia. The fates of the four Chechens suspected of involvement in the Politkovskaya murder come together some 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) south of Moscow.

'The Intelligence Services Have Politkovskaya on Their Conscience'

Achkhoy-Martan, a drab little city of 20,000 people, lies at the foot of the Greater Caucasus mountain range, in a region where the Chechen flatlands gradually give way to the hard-to-control mountains. In the first Chechen war, underground fighters roamed the forests of the region. Bamut, a stronghold of the rebels who were seeking independence at the time, is only eight kilometers away.

Achkhoy-Martan is the home of the three Makhmudov brothers: Rustam, the presumed shooter, and Dzhabrail and Ibrahim, who allegedly kept watch. The brothers' car, a green Lada with broken windshield wipers, was filmed by a bank's surveillance camera near Politkovskaya's apartment on the day of the murder. On May 31 of this year, Rustam Makhmudov was arrested at his parents' house, a trim, red brick building in Achkhoy-Martan. His brother Dzhabrail insists: "We are all innocent. The intelligence services have Politkovskaya on their conscience."

Rustam's uncle, Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, also grew up in Achkhoy-Martan before embarking on a career of crime with the so-called "Lasagna Mafia," named after a restaurant in Moscow's historic district. The gang committed bombing attacks and murdered dozens of people in the Russian capital in the early 1990s. Former and active agents with the FSB were also involved in these crimes.

Gaitukayev, also an informant for the FSB, brags that he helped the Moscow-based domestic intelligence agency kill Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev. He is in prison for the 2006 attack on businessman Korban, in which Pavlyuchenkov played a dubious role. A Russian newspaper, quoting the investigation files, reports that while in prison Basayev hired Pavlyuchenkov to handle the Politkovskaya killing by "October 7th at the latest, preferably exactly on the 7th" -- in other words, Putin's birthday.

Passenger lists show that Gaitukayev flew to Chechnya with FSB officer Ryaguzov. Apparently Ryaguzov also traveled with the presumed killer, Rustam Makhmudov. Ryaguzov, Pavlyuchenkov and a former police officer often met in restaurants near the Lubyanka, the FSB headquarters building. Two of their favorites were the Shesh-Besh and the café in the basement of the Hotel Sverchkov. The café is only 300 meters (980 feet) from the offices of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, where Politkovskaya worked.

Who Hired Whom?

After his arrest in August 2007, Lieutenant Colonel Ryaguzov admitted that he had obtained the journalist's home address from an intelligence database for a middleman. He later revoked his statement. He was released and is still on the FSB's payroll today.

In a country with an independent judiciary and a vital democracy, ties between the criminal underworld and law enforcement agencies would have led to hearings before parliamentary subcommittees, public protests and high-level resignations. In Russia, however, even many investigative journalists and most opposition politicians are too afraid to speak out about the Politkovskaya murder.

Thanks to the research done by Novaya Gazeta, the case is now being revisited in a second trial. It is clear that a single killer could not have been behind the murder. It was too carefully and professionally prepared for that. It is unclear, however, who exactly hired whom. Did Russian intelligence agents hire the Chechen mafia, or did the mafia hire the intelligence agents? The identity of the person who ordered the killing also remains a mystery.

The Chechen trail peters out in Achkhoy-Martan, where a poster sings the praises of the autocratic Kadyrov. Politkovskaya had accused him of committing torture and murder. In 2006, she called him a "coward armed to the teeth."

No one seems eager to examine the possible connections between Kadyrov's men and the mafia group in Achkhoy-Martan, which prepared the murder together with Lieutenant Colonel Pavlyuchenkov. Even Novaya Gazeta isn't sending its Caucasus expects to Chechnya anymore to look into the case. "Since my mother died, Chechnya has been a blank spot on the map," says Politkovskaya's son Ilya. "No one dares to report from there anymore."

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Medvedev moves to toughen gambling law

Medvedev moves to toughen gambling law Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has proposed changes to tighten up the law on illegal gambling, a month after senior regional prosecutors were accused of protecting underground casinos. The 2009 law confining gambling to four remote Russian regions has caused the number of illegal casinos to skyrocket, and created greater opportunities for corruption.

Son of Moscow’s Prosecutor General Questioned in Illegal Gambling Crackdown

Son of Moscow’s Prosecutor General Questioned in Illegal Gambling Crackdown
http://www.casinoscamreport.com/2011/03/31/son-of-moscow%E2%80%99s-prosecutor-general-questioned-in-illegal-gambling-crackdown/
In a case out of Moscow that has already had its fair share of corruption, intrigue, betrayal and the Mafia, we now have a new dimension being added, a corrupt son! Artyom Chaika the son of Moscow’s Prosecutor General is going to be questioned by the Investigation Committee in the ongoing illegal gambling case, which has involved the regions top prosecutor and his deputy. Investigators plan on questioning the Prosecutor General’s son over his involvement in the illegal gambling ring that was raided earlier this month, which was run by alleged mafia kingpin Ivan Nazarov. An anonymous witness has reportedly informed investigators that Artyom Chaika’s people have been involved with coordinating relations between the prosecutor’s office and the Mafioso.

Son of Moscow’s Prosecutor General Questioned in Illegal Gambling Crackdown
http://www.thenewage.co.za/13902-1020-53-Russian_top_prosecutor's_son_questioned_in_corruption_probe


Investigators initially opened a criminal case into the gambling ring, only for the prosecutors to close it the next day.


Last month, the FSB said the operation was raking in up to $10 million per month. The case also exposed the seeming privileged position of Chaika's son.

Prosecutors fingered in casino racket

Prosecutors fingered in casino racket
by Anna Arutunyan
Russia’s Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service are on a collision course with prosecutors over a vast illegal casino ring alleged to be under the direct protection of high-placed Moscow region prosecutors.


The standoff culminated on Wednesday with an unprecedented FSB raid of Moscow region police headquarters and the arrest of three regional police officials.


At the heart of the battle is 30-year-old gambling kingpin Ivan Nazarov, whom the FSB is accusing of bribing Moscow region prosecutors with expensive vacations for protecting his casino racket, associating with oligarch-in-exile Boris Berezovsky and acting as a go-between for a law-
enforcement protection racket.


Allegations of police and security officials protecting casinos have circulated widely since a July 2009 ban forced gambling underground.


But mounting FSB leaks, the raid on a police headquarters, and the Investigative Committee’s persistent hounding of Nazarov – despite attempts by the Prosecutor General’s Office to bury the case – point to an escalating conflict within Russia’s power structures.


Nazarov may just be a figure caught in the crossfire, says his lawyer, Alexander Dobrovinsky.


“When Ivan was arrested, [Moscow region Investigative Committee officer Oleg] Tselipotkin told him, ‘you are my personal enemy,’” Dobrovinsky told The Moscow News. “Ivan asked why, and the investigator said, ‘Because you are friends with my enemies in the Prosecutor General’s Office.


I was reprimanded four times because of them. And I must take revenge.’”


The case goes back to a mysterious Feb. 11 FSB raid of the Triumph art gallery, operated by Nazarov’s friend, Emelyan Zakharov - but days later it surfaced that the FSB was actually after Nazarov.


The FSB announced Monday that thanks to the Triumph raid it had uncovered “close contacts” between Nazarov and Moscow region Prosecutor Alexander Mokhov, as well as his first deputy, Alexander Ignatenko.


Ignatenko has since been suspended from his job.


Documents leaked to the media showed pictures of Nazarov and Mokhov dancing, as well as travel agency lists that had Mokhov and Ignatenko - as well as their families - enjoying vacations to Paris and Milan, all paid for by Nazarov.


Mokhov has denied the allegations. “I paid for the vacations myself, I have all the necessary documents to prove it,” Mokhov was quoted by RBC as saying.


Asked if Nazarov was acquainted with the prosecutors, his lawyer said, “Probably. So they were acquainted, so what? What is the crime in that? Maybe they weren’t.”


As for the pictures showing them dancing, Dobrovinsky said, “They absolutely must instigate a criminal case for dancing. Lethal dancing,” he joked.


“If this is an illegal gambling case, then why aren’t there illegal gambling charges in the accusations?”


Instead, Nazarov is being charged with fraud.


Resistance from prosecutors


In an unusually candid statement, the FSB had blamed the Moscow region’s prosecutor’s office for “both hidden and open resistance to preliminary investigation,” RIA Novosti reported, citing a press release.


Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee - a structure separated from prosecutors last year by President Dmitry Medvedev as Russia’s answer to the FBI - claimed its criminal probe was initially overruled by prosecutors, a complaint it took up with Prosecutor General Yury Chaika.


Chaika’s deputy, Vladimir Malinovsky, had halted a criminal probe launched on Feb. 11. Investigators then launched another criminal probe.


During Nazarov’s arraignment on Thursday, the prosecution protested the investigator’s demands that the defendant be placed in custody. Nazarov, the prosecution argued, had a license to hold lotteries - therefore his business was legal, RIA Novosti reported.


The standoff may be a reflection of an ongoing struggle for influence within the organisations.


“This may be part of a deeper process linked to transfer of administrative resources, but we don’t know the facts,” Kirill Kabanov, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, told The Moscow News. “The problem is we’re playing guessing games, because we have no independent oversight.”


The siloviki are playing games that have little to do with law enforcement, Kabanov said. “A bunch of guys in uniforms get together and start wasting each other. Everyone can get someone for something.”


Calls for a reshuffle


Aside from Ignatenko’s suspension, there was no indication as of Thursday what would happen to senior prosecutors named in connection with the case.


But lawmakers called for a thorough probe into activities of everyone involved, including the prosecutors.


United Russia deputy Alexei Volkov called for a “clean-out” of all structures involved in the “scandal”.


“If there aren’t any cadre changes and resignations, then we can hardly talk about any serious intentions to fight corruption,” Volkov was quoted by RBC as saying.


Others said busting up the gambling protection rackets was long overdue.


“It’s good that the FSB has cracked this, because of course there was ‘krysha’ [protection] from law enforcement structures.” Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov, a member of the security committee, told The Moscow News.


“Prosecutors and investigators may well be in a state of confrontation - so what? It’s good if gambling and corruption is being busted.”


Asked if he expected to see any firings, he said, “I hope there are. It’s time for a renewal. If this confrontation continues, I will insist on some sort of checks.”

Prosecutors fingered in casino racket

17/02/201120:09

The FSB raid a Moscow region police HQ in the midst of a corruption standoff

Preview:Prosecutors fingered in casino racket
The FSB raid a Moscow region police HQ in the midst of a corruption standoff

Moscow Gambling Raid

Picasso Work, Berezovsky Papers Found in Moscow Gambling Raid

The Federal Security Service said it found artworks by Pablo Picasso and Rembrandt and documents for offshore companies belonging to self-exiled investor Boris Berezovsky in a raid on an illegal gambling operation in Moscow.

The paintings, worth more than $5 million, and documents were found in the main office of a building in central Moscow that was once used by Berezovsky, the FSB said on its web site.

The crime syndicate that operated out of a building on Novokuznetskaya Ulitsa was able to earns as much as $10 million a month in part because of the "support" it received from senior law enforcement officials in the Moscow region, including a first deputy prosecutor, the FSB said. The building also houses the Triumph art gallery.

The Berezovsky documents relate to properties held by the businessman and his family outside of Russia, the service said. Berezovsky, who received political asylum in Britain after fleeing Russia in 2001, has been sentenced in absentia to prison terms for embezzlement. Berezovsky couldn't be reached for comment immediately when Bloomberg called his mobile phone.

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's former chief of staff, vowed to create special units to raid illegal gambling operations "24 hours a day" after President Dmitry Medvedev fired his predecessor, Yury Luzhkov, in September after 18 years in power.

As president in 2006, Putin called for casinos to be shut to reduce addiction and clamp down on organized crime. He set up four special zones for gambling in the far reaches of the country. Medvedev has since taken the lead in the campaign, likening gambling addiction to a public health hazard.

Russia had 3 million gambling addicts, or 2.1 percent of the population, according to a 2008 estimate by NarcoDen, a Moscow-based rehabilitation specialist.

Hidden casino busted

Hidden casino busted by Moscow police


MOSCOW, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Moscow police raided an illegal gambling lair across the street from the Foreign Ministry Friday, authorities said.

About 80 gamblers and casino operators were taken by surprise when heavily armed, black-clad officers barged in, police spokeswoman Yelena Perfilova told RIA Novosti.

She said the casino was hidden behind a second-floor kitchen in a hotel across from the ministry building. Police "seized 13 poker tables, four roulette wheels, 17 slot-machines, 50,000 gambling chips and 2,000 decks of cards," Perfilova said.

Illegal casinos have proliferated in Russia since a July 2009 law banned gambling except in four remote zones.

Money laundering, Kremlin-style

Wikileaks provided invaluable insight into the world of corruption,
money-laundering and casino gambling in Moscow (worth reading in
their entirety) ---


WikiLeaks cables: Moscow mayor presided over 'pyramid of corruption'
Criminality, bribery and sleaze endemic in city administration, US ambassador reported to Washington


US embassy cables: Moscow mayor oversees corrupt system, says US


10. (S) According to XXXXXXXXXXXX, Luzhkov is following orders from the Kremlin to not go after Moscow's criminal groups. For example, XXXXXXXXXXXX argued that it was only a public relations stunt from Putin to close gambling. XXXXXXXXXXXX said he did not see the sense in suitcases of money going into the Kremlin since it would be easier to open a secret account in Cyprus. He speculated that the Moscow police heads have a secret war chest of money. XXXXXXXXXXXX said that this money is likely used to solve problems that the Kremlin decides, such as rigging elections. It can be accessed as a resource for when orders come from above, for example, for bribes or to pay off people when necessary. XXXXXXXXXXXX postulated that the Kremlin might say to a governor that he can rule a certain territory but in exchange he must do what the Kremlin says.


14. (S) Despite Medvedev's stated anti-corruption campaign, the extent of corruption in Moscow remains pervasive with Mayor Luzhkov at the top of the pyramid. Luzhkov oversees a system in which it appears that almost everyone at every level is involved in some form of corruption or criminal behavior.

Beacon Hill ignored Russia's lessons

Russia recognized the negative economic impacts of gambling, the threats of gambling addictions to economic prosperity and took action. What a pity Beacon Hill fails to heed the message.


Putin voiced concern over the growing dependency of Russians on gaming. “It is a pity that casinos and slot machines are as addictive as alcohol in this country,” he said. In the opinion of Putin, the decision to form four gaming zones was civilized.




Four illegal casinos closed down in central Moscow


MOSCOW, October 29 (Itar-Tass) -- Four illegal casinos were closed down in Moscow last night, spokesman for the city police department’s economic crime division Filip Zolotnitsky told Itar-Tass.

About 200 police officers took part in the operation, he said.

“The police seized poker tables, roulettes and slot machines, as well as plenty of records confirming illegal operations. The casinos offered bars with expensive beverages and concerts by pop stars,” he said.

The owners of the casinos will be charged, Zolotnitsky said.

The first legal casino in the former Soviet Union opened at the Moscow Savoy Hotel with a special permission of the government in 1989. The casino designed by a Finnish company had only foreign clients. Another casino opened one year later for foreign and local clients. That casino was put on the Guinness Book of Records.

The first casino dealing in rubles opened in 1991 and gave rise to the gaming business. Moscow alone had about 200 casinos in the end of the 1990s. The first slot machine parlors opened in 1993, and the business boomed by 2002.

There were 800 parlors with 12,000 slot machines in Russia in 1998, and over 2,100 with 35,000 slot machines in the end of 2000. Most of them (20,000 or 63%) were installed in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and another 20% in twelve large regions – Stavropol and Krasnodar territories, Rostov, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Volgograd, Sverdlovsk, Leningrad, Perm and Novosibirsk regions, Udmurtia and Tatarstan.

Many gaming facilities, especially slot machine parlors, became semi-legal in the early 2000s. Slot machines were installed even at bus stops.

The first law limiting the gaming business in Russia was adopted in 2006. It specified the minimum space of a gaming facility, the minimal distance to schools, colleges, public and administrative buildings, and so on. Institutions, which failed to meet the requirements had to close down by July 1, 2007.

Then President Putin initiated the gaming industry law after the Interior Ministry had held a series of operations to check the financial, tax and sanitary-epidemiological status of gaming facilities in Moscow, which were allegedly linked to the Georgian mob.

Putin voiced concern over the growing dependency of Russians on gaming. “It is a pity that casinos and slot machines are as addictive as alcohol in this country,” he said. In the opinion of Putin, the decision to form four gaming zones was civilized.

The law said that gaming zones would be built on land lots belonging to federal or municipal authorities and not allocated for urban or rural development. The gaming community was supposed to lease the land lots from the federal government.

It is also possible to open gaming sites on territories allocated for urban and rural development. In that case licenses would be issued on coordination with local authorities.

The law set particular requirements for owners of gaming sites. They must be Russian private legal entities with net assets larger than 600 million rubles.

The law, which entered into force on January 1, 2007, tightened gaming industry requirements and all the gaming sites that failed to meet them closed down.

All Russian casinos and slot machine parlors operating outside the four gaming zones closed down on July 1, 2009.

The gaming zones will open in the Kaliningrad region, the Altai and Primorye territories and the Krasnodar territory.