Russia Shuts Down Casinos

Love of Money can be a Problem (1 Timothy 6:10)

While the USA President is taking steps to encourage immorality, the situation is different in Russia:

Game over for Russia’s punters as gambling ban closes casinos

Luke Harding in Moscow…

Nearly two decades after the first casino opened its doors, Russia is to ban gambling from Wednesday across most of its territory in a move that casino owners say will drive the industry underground.

All casinos and slot-machine halls will be outlawed. With the exception of four far-flung special zones, no gambling will be allowed across the Russian Federation.

Russia’s prime minister Vladimir Putin proposed the legislation in 2006, when president, in an apparent attempt to wipe out an immoral industry. Despite expectations of a compromise with the casinos, Putin has stood firm.

From tomorrow Moscow’s gambling halls, popular with oligarchs and often decorated with bad-taste rococo statuary, will grow silent – at least, that is the theory. Casino owners are dismayed.

They say the move will throw 350,000 people out of work, at a time when Russia is gripped by high unemployment. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/29/russia-bans-gambling-casino-putin

Russia’s casinos close as new law takes effect

Alexander Osipovich

July 1, 2009…

The law marks the end of era that began in the 1990s, when businessmen and gangsters who acquired fantastic wealth in Russia’s post-communist turmoil gambled it away in lavish casinos in central Moscow.

Gambling establishments, from seedy slot-machine parlours to extravagant casinos for the new rich, seemingly popped up overnight after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

But Putin, who once called gambling addiction “even stronger than addiction to alcohol” http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/russias-casinos-close-as-new-law-takes-effect-20090701-d4wb.html

This is a bold move. It is not that all gaming is necessarily wrong, but Russia recognized it was getting out of hand.

Notice that the reason for the close is to reduce immorality. Covetousness is apparently considered an actual problem in Russia–the USA seems to take a different view of that commandment in Exodus 20:17.

The Bible also teaches:

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows (1 Timothy 6:10).

And even though this Russian action will not stop all gambling addicts, the Russian state has recognized that too many people are being hurt by gambling and that the state wants to decrease immorality.

This is simply a different (and better) motivation that the national policies that have come out of countries like the USA.

Americans should note the stark difference between the motivations of its leaders and that of the Russians. The US is not the moral leader of the world.

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