Tim Alper iGaming Journalist
Tim Alper is a journalist covering betting news and regulation for CasinoBeats, with a focus on regulatory developments and international markets. He reports on breaking stories across Europe and Asia, including gambling law changes and...
Read Full BioA court in southwest Russia has sent an underground casino mastermind to prison for 18 years.
The Traktorozavodsky District Court in Volgograd sentenced eight defendants, unnamed for legal reasons, to jail terms of between three and 18 years for running illegal betting dens in three Russian regions, the Russian media outlet Tsargrad reported.
The kingpin’s three closest subordinates received 12-year jail terms at maximum-security penal colonies.
The court also sentenced a former law enforcer to 15 years in a maximum-security penal colony, as well as a four-year ban on holding law-enforcement positions.
This individual was a member of the Economic Security and Combating Corruption Department at the Volgograd Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The court heard that the former ministry official abused his position of power to help shield the dens from police investigations and warn them of possible future raids.
Underground Casino Mastermind Locked Away
Prosecutors told the court the kingpin had created “a network of underground casinos disguised as table soccer clubs.”
The court heard the gambling dens operated from March 2020 to July 2021 in the Volgograd, Samara, and Saratov oblasts.
The dens used a sophisticated network of internet-connected gambling equipment, prosecutors said. This allowed operators to centrally control betting and payouts. During a police raid, bailiffs seized 66 units of illegal gaming equipment.
Land-based gambling is illegal in Russia outside four official betting zones and permit-holding sports bookmakers’ offices.
Betting Addiction Problems Mount in Russia
Problem gambling is on the rise in Russia. Last year, Tatyana Klimenko, Director of the National Scientific Center for Addiction Medicine, said that recent years have seen an increase in gambling addiction-related problems.
“The difficulty is that not every gambler is willing to admit they have a problem,” Klimenko said. “There is some disagreement among statisticians. Figures range from 1% to 4-7% of the general population. Up to 15% of children are affected. These figures are concerning.”
In 2022, 14,000 people sought governmental help with gambling addiction-related problems, said the Unified Regulator of Gambling, the country’s casinos regulator.
Half of this number were citizens aged under 18, the regulator said.
Lawmakers have responded by creating new legislation that will force bookmakers to include gambling addiction warnings in their advertisements.
The law, which comes into force on September 1, will require land-based offices to display prominent notices about addiction.
The notices will contain information about traditional financial instruments, which Moscow wants to promote as an attractive alternative to gambling.
“We will enhance financial literacy and encourage citizens to use financial instruments,” said a member of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper parliamentary house, per the Russian media outlet RAPSI News.
“This will also prevent the spread of gambling addiction,” the council said.
Earlier this month, the Russian finance ministry said the illegal online casinos sector was growing fast. It complained that regulators are almost powerless to stem the sector’s growth.
Also this month, police in the Russian city of Sochi charged a man with stealing 200,000 rubles, worth over $2,605, from his girlfriend. The cash was his live-in lover’s life savings, police said. The man reportedly frittered away the cash at an online casino before fleeing to a local hotel.
