Gambling in Russia

[1][2][3] At the end of 1927, the People’s Commissar of the Interior presented a report devoted to gambling and the gaming business existing at that time to the RSFSR SPC.

The main idea voiced through the report was that its incompatibility of an idle, bourgeois pastime with the true spirit of the working proletariat.

On June 6, 1928, the Workers-Peasants’ Government of the RSFSR issues the resolution, "On Banning the Draw of Liquors in Lotteries".

The first slot machines which appeared in the country quite lawfully, were installed only in 1988 in hotels which were part of the USSR State Committee of Foreign Tourism (Goscomintourist).

Within the system, the All-Russian Business External Trade Union (VHVO) "Intourservice" is set up, developing new kinds of additional services for foreign tourists, payable in free convertible currency.

Despite an eagerness to deal with slot machine installation and operation, the Soviet authorities allowed it only within its state structures, only as an experiment.

In the first year, 226 slot machines with cash prizes were installed in Intourist hotels in Moscow, Leningrad, Sochi, Yalta, Minsk, Tallinn, Vyborg and Pyatigorsk.

[5] Gambling may be arranged solely by registered legal entities according to the set procedure within the Russian Federation.

In fact, there remained only one activity to be licensed – the organisation and arrangement of gambling in bookmakers’ offices and totalisators.

The Act introduces restrictions on the exercise of this activity in order to protect citizens' morals and the legitimate interests of the population.

[10] Poker in Russia was very popular during the collapse of the USSR, when people started being interested in Western culture and values.

The zone became popular with players from Rostov-on-Don, while the rest preferred to play via the Internet, or traveled to the CIS countries, where live poker was not prohibited.