OREANDA-NEWS. December 23, 2008.   The Crimean authorities resumed granting licences for gaming business. Since November last year the peninsula had had a moratorium for granting licences to gambling operators till the confirmation of special licensing conditions. And now the moratorium is lifted by the Crimean Cabinet Council. The members of the Cabinet Council are sure that they have to lift the moratorium as the Ukrainian Cabinet Council is now busy with matters other than gambling regulation.

As of July 1st, 2009, in Russia, all gambling facilities will be allowed to operate only in the specially allotted zones; however, the regional authorities and investors had been in no rush to prepare the zones before the autumn, and in autumn, as the global economic crisis began, all the works were just halted. Consequently, by the following year the legal gambling market in Russia should either commit a suicide or move to adjacent states, first of all, to Ukraine and Belarus.

According to the news from Crimea, they are quite aware of the situation the Russian business operators have found themselves in, and they are preparing to take advantage of the situation – Crimea as a gaming zone is by now far more preferable for the Russian citizens than the deserted gaming zones in Russia proper.