Alexey Savatyugin, responsible for the department of the Ministry of Finances, suggested deleting all available posts for gambling sites in Russia from the gambling project. If this proposal is supported by the parliament, the law on gambling business regulation might be postponed indefinitely.

The matter in issue is that the main idea of the project proposed by the government intends to impose a limit to the number of casinos and gambling sites. The Chamber of Representatives approved the project last March 24th.

Supported by Putin’s administration, the members voted for a casino post every 200,000 people. If this limit comes effective, Moscow will have only 50 casinos instead of the 60 casinos and 3,000 slot halls in existence nowadays.

Restrictions will go into effect from January 1st, 2009. Up to that date, every authorized casino and gambling site will continue to operate provided their net active reaches $21, 8 million dollars, and all gambling halls based on inappropriate locations, such as shops and homes, will be removed.

These requirements will help big gambling businessmen get rid of their weakest rivals in the market, while politicians will be able to calm down the public, increasingly upset due to the huge quantity of slot machines in town. The variety of opinions in this respect is likely to delay the process even more.