The first casino in Russia’s Sochi gaming zone is looking at a December opening. Yulia Malorodnova, a representative of the city government made the announcement of the soft launch at Sochi Gaming Week.
The grand opening will follow on January 5, she said.
The gambling zone will be sited at local resorts, including Gorky Goro and Roza Khutor and will hold up to 1,700 at a time and plan to greet as many as 600,000 annually.
In a separate but related development, the Russian Ministry of Finance is proposing changes to the nation’s gaming laws that would require bookmakers and tote operators to pay a large part of their profits to benefit the sports that they the benefit from.
Vitaly Mutko, minister for Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy made the suggestion last year, and his proposal has since then been included in legislation that would require the bookmakers to make “contributions” to federations, leagues and other sporting events.
They would also be charged a 3 percent tax each quarter that would be redistributed to develop sports.
Oleg Zhuravsky, chairman for the First Self-Regulatory Organization of Betting Companies is critical of the proposal, claiming that it will harm the bookmaking industry to the extent that it won’t be profitable. He said the combined effect of the new laws would be to force bookmakers to pay half of their profits. It might also force the legitimate operators to go underground, he said.
