Russians Say Nyet to Poker
Written by Matt W | Sunday, July 26th, 2009
There is no pussyfooting around in Russia when it comes to gambling laws. A government order released on Friday changed the status of poker from a sport to a gambling activity in one cruel swoop, essentially pushing the game under the same umbrella as other wagering pastimes.
As a result, poker rooms who managed to stay open while other casinos closed around them under Putin’s crackdown on gambling establishments will now have to shut their doors.
New restrictions introduced this month, banished casinos to the far flung corners of Russia, essentially forcing players to travel thousands of miles to have a game – or take up online gambling.
The government couldn’t have put it more bluntly. “Poker doesn’t exist as a sport,” said the Minister of Sports, Tourism and Youth Politics, Vitaly Mutko.
Russian poker fans saw for themselves this week that the decision had been reached by a ministerial commission on Friday, when the decree was published for all to see on the official ministry website.
Authorities were ordered to “clamp down on illegal gambling activity, including that done on the internet, through poker clubs, fruit machines, etc.”
Russian poker clubs had hoped that the overall gambling ban did not relate to them, using the loophole in the law that poker is a sport. However, the new decree put pay to that. The Russian Federation of Sport Poker has now asked the government to define whether amateur poker players are in fact breaking the law by having a casual game.
In a particularly emotional website statement, the head of the federation, Dmitry Lesnoi wrote: “We are in mourning!”
The future of the much awaited European Poker Tour tournament to be held in Moscow for the first time is also very much up in the air, as poker fans struggle to understand how the new laws will affect their activities.
Russian players have slowly being making themselves more and more conspicuous on the international poker circuit over the past few years, including players such as Alex Kravenchko who made the 2007 WSOP final table, as well as Ivan Demidov and Vitaly Lunkin.
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· Written by Matt W · Filed Under Poker Gossip · Comments Off
