Tim Alper is a journalist who covers betting news and regulation for CasinoBeats. He joined the CasinoBeats team in May 2025. He reports on breaking news and developments in the world of betting, casinos, and...
Read Full BioA Russian man offered to help his relative buy a car, but instead of coming good on his promises, he blew the money at a casino.
That’s according to police and Ministry of Internal Affairs officials in the Far Eastern Khabarovsk Krai region, the Russian media outlet Argumenty i Facty reported.
Ministry officials say officers in Khabarovsk detained the man, a 51-year-old resident of the city’s Industrial District. Police have charged the man with embezzling “a large sum of money from his cousin.”
Officers say the man visited his cousin in Vladivostok and offered to help him buy a foreign car.
His cousin reportedly agreed to the suggestion and sent the suspect 860,000 rubles (about $11,000) via a banking app.
Relative’s Russian Casino Spree
The suspect then allegedly said he would contact a car vendor to buy the vehicle. But, ministry officials said, “Instead of paying for the car, the thief went to a casino in a gambling zone and lost the entire amount in a single evening.”
The next morning, the suspect reportedly told his relative that the money “might have been stolen.” The ministry said it has charged the man with fraud. If found guilty, a court could sentence the man to up to six years in jail.
Officials say they have released the suspect on bail and ordered him not to leave the area. The ministry said it had searched his home and frozen his bank accounts, seizing 25,000 rubles, or $320.
A spokesperson said the suspect has prior convictions for possession of drugs and causing bodily harm.
Russia is home to a small handful of gambling zones, the only areas that allow casinos and slot machine centers to operate. One of the biggest of these is Primorie in the town of Artyom, a 40-minute drive north from central Vladivostok.
Another Man Stole Money From Hospitalized Friend to Gamble Online
In a related development, the Kuban-based Russian media outlet Novaya Kuban reported that police have accused a 23-year-old male resident of Apsheronsk of stealing money from his friend to gamble online.
Officers in Krasnodar, a large city in Southern Russia, say the suspect also lost all of the money in bad bets.
Police said a man called them after undergoing treatment at a medical facility in the Rostov Oblast. He reportedly told officers that he had given his friend his mobile phone for safekeeping while having a medical procedure.
After the procedure, the man discovered that someone had withdrawn 1.7 million rubles ($21,730) from his bank account. Krasnodar police detained the man’s friend on a street in the city later that day.
They found the suspect had used his friend’s mobile to access banking apps to withdraw the savings “in several transactions.” The suspect then went on to “lose the entire stolen sum at an online casino,” police concluded.
Earlier this month, a leading Russian policymaker called upon the country’s censors to block citizens’ access to a Telegram-based casino platform.
The policymaker said the Central Bank should also help crack down on the platform, which he said uses young Russian card mules.
