Casino opened in Russian gambling region

One July last year was a dark day for Russian casino gambling, the government had banned all gambling halls and casinos to 3 designated gambling zones. Last weekend, the first casino opened its doors, the Oracle Casino in Azov in the Rostov Oblast region in the south-west of Russia.

The casino has 200 slot machines and 10 table games and is situated in a large shed-like building, the opening did not attracted the number of visitors normally associated with a new casino. There were only 500 people, most of which was attended just to view the establishment, only 20% or 100 people where actually there to gamble. An average opening of a casino attracts more than 100.000 visitors in the first week. Despite the low turnout of visitors on the first day, the casino is encouraged by the site and think they can flourish in the market. Valery Saparin, Marketing Director for the developer of the casino, said in an interview: “There’s a lot of gambling people here, we hope that a lot of people will be drawn to us in the near future.” The nearest large town in the area is about 60 miles away.

The casino gambling industry in Russia flourished until the government decided to ban casinos and gambling from the big cities. In an attempt to not entirely cut off the public from gambling, special casino areas where established in remote areas of Russia. Most casino businesses were not planning to continue their business, because infrastructure in the areas hardly existed. Yet the first casino opened this weekend. How many visitors the casino will attract is unknown because many gamblers took their hobby elsewhere, but casino management expects to receive a fixed stream of income from customers from around the area of the casino.

A legislator from Krasnodar, Nikolay Kotlyarov together with his driver have died after a car accident, he was on his way home from the opening of the casino. The driver drove into a parked car along the highway and then crashed into the guardrail, the two men were killed instantly. The incident raises new concerns about the governments decision to limit gambling to the four remote and hard to reach areas.