Posted on 06/29/2009 1:28:06 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia's plan to close gaming halls, from gaudy casinos crowned by extravagant neon structures to dingy dwellings containing a handful of slot machines, could turf a third of a million people out of work this week.
"I've got 800 staff looking at me every day for inspiration and hope," said Clive Tilley, who runs the 70-tabled Casino de Paris, Moscow's largest gaming complex where gamblers play under vines in mock French courtyards.
"With the economy as it is now, it's not the time to pound the streets looking for work. It breaks my heart."
From July 1, the government plans to replace the casinos and gambling halls with Las Vegas-style gaming zones in four rarely visited regions considered in need of investment, including one near the North Korea border.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin came up with the idea in 2006 when he was president after the Interior Ministry linked several gaming operations in Moscow to a Georgian criminal organisation.
The development zones -- in the southern Krasnodar region, the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, east Siberia's Altai region and the Far Eastern port of Primorye -- require investment of $23 billion (13.8 billion pounds) and have not been built.
The Russian capital has around 550 places where you can gamble, including 30 casinos which have become synonymous with Moscow's love of excess and occupy prime spots across the city.
Critics of the government plan, which will cover Russia's 11 time zones, say it is doomed by a lack of investment.
"This is a dead unrealistic idea," said Samuel Binder, deputy executive director at the Russian Association for Gaming Business Development, an independent monitor.
"It's preposterous to think these replacements could be up and running soon... ...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
“Russia’s casinos to close, thousands lose jobs”
corrected title: “Russia’s LEGAL casinos to close, MAFIA/KGB TO MAKE BILLIONS IN ILEGAL GAMBLING”
Vodka blamed as alcohol kills more than half of Russians in their prime
A study found three quarters of deaths among Russian men and half of deaths among its women aged 15-54 could be attributed to alcohol abuse.
Daily Mail - Jun 27 6:31 AM
Even a sure thing is suspicious to me, let alone "odds in favor of the house".
Rough place, Russia. no wonder so many of their gangsters move here.
Casinos are bad for society. I wish we could shut the ones in this country down (along with the state lotteries, payday advance loans, and car title loans)
Some people are irresponsible and gamble with money they can't afford to lose. But the fact that some people can't gamble responsibly doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't have the freedom to play Blackjack every once in a while.
My wife and I recently visited her family in the Donbass region of Ukraine. The mining and steel industries of the region have been hit hard in recent days, putting many out of work. Gambling and drinking seems to have taken over as the primary occupation of able-bodied men It's sad. Casinos have sprung up everywhere, as fast as they could nail them together. These aren't lavish establishments, either. They're nothing more than windowless shacks where the men go to gamble away their meagre pensions.
Hand in hand with the gambling is drinking. Drunkeness is endemic. It starts young and it's not at all uncommon to see twelve year-olds dressed like rappers and hookers, drinking and smoking in the rusty playgrounds. It's just as common to see full grown men, 30 or 40 years old (looking much older), barely able to stand (if they can even manage that) at 1:00 in the afternoon.
Seems to me that many of the countries problems could be alleviated if the men sobered up and found something productive to do.
here here
Would you make the same argument about highly addictive drugs if just one person had brakes?
I think society is well within it's rights to ban activities that are addictive, destroy lives, and really produce nothing of value except entertainment that competes with healthier forms of entertainment.
Our forefathers recognized the dangers of gambling and the destructive effect it had on society and most states banned it. Tennessee banned it in their constitution. But sadly, we have forgotten the lessons of the past, and must relearn them the hard way.
anyone who understands anything about Soviet geography knows that these four places are the absolute armpits of the Russian Empire
The vast majority of people who go to casinos can control their gambling. Even if you banned it, compulsive gamblers would still find a way to get their fix.
I think society is well within it's rights to ban activities that are addictive, destroy lives, and really produce nothing of value except entertainment that competes with healthier forms of entertainment.
Following that rationale, we may as well ban fatty foods. To some people, such food is addictive, it certainly detroys more lives and does more damage than legalized gambling and it competes with healthier form of food.
What you are proposing, in essence, is that the weak-willed among us should be the standard for what we allow and don't allow.
Sure "most" people can control their gambling. But the amount that can't is significant. The number of families destroyed, the number of businesses hurt because the gambler can't pay, the amount of money government spends trying to rehabilitate addicts and for indigent care, are all societal costs that are poorly understood, but certainly there. And I propose that if we understood those costs, we'd find legalized gambling far less attractive.
I think your "fatty foods" comparison is a poor analogy, mainly, because there are many factors in obesity which are poorly understood. Including Atkin's theory, which millions have followed successfully, that "fat" is not the problem at all. And including the role of genetics, and the recent research indicating that viruses may play a much larger role in obesity.
We do ban foods that are unsafe or clearly harmful. We test meats for e-coli, we check fish for mercury (or did until the FDA was bought off), we check restaurants for safe practices and proper storage temperatures, we make peanut butter manufacturers check for salmonella (even if we don't stop them from shipping), etc. And few of us, except some diehard libertarians, would protest government's role in that.
"What you are proposing, in essence, is that the weak-willed among us should be the standard for what we allow and don't allow."
I don't think the weak willed should set the standard, but I think we should consider the impact on them when we do set standards. What you are suggesting is that everything should be unregulated regardless of how many people are destroyed.
So I take it that you're not opposed to drawing some lines. Then now we are just arguing about how big of a problem something has to be before we regulate it.
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