Saturday, September 30, 2006

A senior Finance Ministry official told gambling operators to prepare for
hard times, while scantily clad girls danced outside the conference hall at
Moscow's annual international gaming expo Thursday. Dancers dressed as
cowgirls moved to the din of slot machines at Crocus Expo, where hundreds of
casino bosses, slots operators and manufacturers of gambling equipment
gathered in the hope of understanding what pending legislation on gambling
means for their booming businesses. "Prepare for the worst and hope for the
best," Alexei Savatyugin, chief of the Finance Ministry's financial policy
department, told the conference. The State Duma is expected to vote on the
crucial second reading of the legislation as early as next week and no later
than November, Savatyugin said. The bill represents the Duma's first serious
attempt to impose strict regulations on the gambling industry, worth nearly
$6 billion last year. The Finance Ministry's Federal Tax Service has been in
charge of handing out gambling licenses since last November, but regional
authorities currently govern all other industry matters. "The stricter the
legislation, the more chances it will have to be approved by a greater
number of politicians," Igor Dines, Duma deputy with United Russia, told the
conference.