http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/world/europe/29casinos.html?_r=1&hpw
MOSCOW — One of the largest mass layoffs in recent Russian history is to occur on Wednesday, and the Kremlin itself is decreeing it, economic crisis or not.
The government is shutting down every last legal casino and slot-machine parlor across the land, under an antivice plan promoted by Vladimir V. Putin that as recently as a few months ago was widely perceived as far-fetched. But the result will be hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work.
And in a move that at times seems to have taken on almost farcical overtones, the Kremlin has offered the gambling industry only one option for survival: relocate to four regions in remote areas of Russia, as many as 4,000 miles from the capital. The potential marketing slogans — Come to the Las Vegas of Siberia! Have a Ball near the North Korean Border! — may not sound inviting, but that is in part what the government envisions.
“The rules will not be revised in any way,” Mr. Medvedev said last month, “and there will be no backsliding, although various business organizations have been lobbying for precisely this.”
The gambling industry says the ban will leave more than 400,000 people without work in Russia, at a time when it has been hard hit by the economic downturn: the World Bank predicts the economy will contract by 7.9 percent this year. The government has put the figure at 60,000 people, though industry analysts say that is absurdly low.
Storm International, a gambling conglomerate controlled by a British expatriate, Michael Boettcher, said that until recently, it alone employed 6,000 people at Shangri-La and several other casinos in Moscow.
