Russia is considering the creation of a special resort district with casinos and supporting hotels in the recently annexed Crimea.
Officials discussed the possibility at a March 21 meeting led by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, according to a Russian news report citing anonymous sources, who said the Economy, Finance and Regional Development ministries are working under an April 15 deadline to present a plan with spending and revenue estimates.
In its controversial annexation of the Black Sea peninsula from the Ukraine, the country has taken on a debt-laden region that may consume the equivalent of US$2.8 billion in emergency subsidies this year, according to the same sources. Should the casino district be created it will be part of a special economic zone providing tax breaks and other incentives to lure private investment in a bid to lift the economy and bolster government coffers. The Kremlin estimates that upwards of 130 billion rubles ($3.65 billion) are needed to support the region and its main port city of Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The amount could balloon to 260 billion rubles to raise state pensions and salaries to Russian levels, one source said.
Russia banished casinos from major cities in 2009 and relegated it to four outlying regions—the European enclave of Kaliningrad, the Don-Rostov area near the Crimea in the southwest, the Altai region of Central Asia and Primorye region on the Pacific coast, home to the port city of Vladivostok. To date, only one resort is operating, in Azov City in the southwest. Two casinos are also planned for the Vladivostok area, one by a joint venture controlled by Macau operator Lawrence Ho, the other by Cambodia’s NagaCorp.
The government, meanwhile, is cracking down on unlicensed web gambling and recently added 600 sites to a national blacklist which local ISPs are obliged to block. The list is reported to include major operators of the likes of PokerStars, Unibet, Titan Poker and Party Poker.
