Gambling News by Gambling Headquarters

A bill that would close most casinos and slot-machine halls in the country - including Moscow and St. Petersburg - cleared a third and final reading Wednesday in the State Duma. To become law, the bill still needs the approval of the Federation Council and of President Vladimir Putin, who submitted the draft in October. The bill received the support of 428 out of 450 deputies, indicating that the law is certain to be adopted. The bill calls for the creation of four zones for legal gambling - the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, the Primorsky region on the Pacific coast, the Siberian region of Altai and the southern Krasnodar-Rostov area. Casinos and slot-machine operations elsewhere in the country would be banned as of July 1, 2009. Gambling experts have have voiced doubts that the areas will be able to draw enough visitors to make gambling viable there.