Three Casinos Being Closed in Russia to Help Sochi Prosper

Three casinos in Russia, Oracul, Shambala and Nirvana are scheduled to close by April, the Russian government announced.

Even though these three casinos were very successful during the last few years, they will be closed in order to shift the focus to the new gambling zone in Sochi. Casinos from the Krasnodar Krai, region in the gambling zone named Azov-City, attracted 254,000 visitors in 2013 and over the first five months of 2014 they have reached number of 128,000 visitors.

According to the Anatoly Pakhomov the city's gambling zone in Sochi will open its doors in May and casinos will be using the facilities set up for the Olympic Games. Sochi is also located in the Krasnodar region which means it would put Sochi in a competition with the casinos placed in Azov- City. Russian casinos will be closed by April 1st and the Russian Ministry of Finance will pay at least 10 billion rubles ($145m) to the owners of the casinos.

Until now, there are no proposals to build a casino in Sochi so the government believe that if they removed all the competition from the region the investors would put their money into a Sochi casino project.

Other casino projects

Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has signed a law that approves gambling zone in Crimea which is a Ukrainian region annexed by Russia last year. The government plan was to attract more visitors to the area that used to be very popular before the Ukrainian crisis.

The land based gambling has been strictly regulated in Russia, especially since 2009, when the Russian government relocated all gambling activities to four new gambling zones. Online gambling law of 2006 prohibits all games of chance but poker remains in the grey area due to the question whether it’s a game of chance or skill. Russian residents were able to access foreign gambling sites but recently the ISPs have been asked to block the gambling related sites.

Several firms have plans to build casinos in Primorsky Krai that borders with northeastern China. Lawrence Ho plans to open a casino near Vladivostok in May; Royal Time (operates Oracul) also has plans to open a casino in this region in the future. Primorsky Krai is perfectly placed to take an advantage of Asian Market, attracting Asian high rollers to the region.

The next move of the Russian government is certainly unpredictable but one thing is clear, due to the new gambling zone in Sochi, three successful casinos will close its doors in April.