Saboteur: Gambling industry explodes in Russia (link to article)

[Saboteur]

The link below takes you to an article in today's Washington Post. The story discusses the Russian government's attempts to rein in the incredible growth in gambling there. You may have to register to read the article.

One person was quoted as saying he thinks that Russia should come up with its own version of Las Vegas, north of the Arctic Circle.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...062501035.html

[Bettie]

I posted the following last December:

> From today's Las Vegas Review Journal , in the gossip
> column:

> Russia's gaming explosion is cooling off.

> "It was too much. Moscow was covered by casinos
> on every corner. People are sick of it," Russian
> travel writer Vladimir Paperny said Saturday while
> touring the Aladdin for his first story on Sin City.

> When Russia started experimenting with a free-market
> economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
> "the first business that sprouted was
> gambling," said Paperny, a writer for Afisha, the
> Russian word for billboard or poster.

> "As you have probably heard, the mayor of Moscow
> is very corrupt and has some very close ties with the
> business. He profits from the business," said
> Paperny, a Los Angeles-based writer who just returned
> from Moscow last month.

> Amid the deepening resentment toward the gaming boom,
> however, "some positive things" have
> occurred in the new Russia.

> "When they wanted to rebuild a cathedral
> demolished under Stalin, the cathedral was built very
> quickly," said Paperny. Any truth to the fact
> that people are "sick of" casinos on
> "every corner"?

It looks like Russia wasn't as sick of those casinos as was initially thought!

Bettie