Russia bans all gambling and shuts casinos

By Mikhail Antonov and Vladimir Bomko

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia closed down its casinos overnight as gambling was banned nationwide, a move the industry says could throw a third of a million people out of work.

The July 1 ban shut gaming halls, from gaudy casinos crowned by extravagant neon structures to dingy dwellings containing a handful of slot machines.

"I feel terrible. We just let 1,000 people go," said Yuri Boyev, general director at Metelitsa, an upmarket casino where billionaires rolled the dice and Russia's gas giant Gazprom held a lavish Christmas party.

Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, came up with the idea in 2006 when he was president after the Interior Ministry linked several gaming operations in Moscow to Georgian organized crime.

The Kremlin plans to restrict gambling to Las Vegas-style gaming zones in four rarely visited regions deemed to need investment, including one near the North Korea border, but nothing has been built and critics say the zones will fail.

Though gaming establishments knew the shutdown date for at least a year, few thought the government would go through with it, but officials moved in overnight to close them down.

The industry says the ban will axe at least 300,000 jobs but officials in Moscow put the national figure at only 11,500.

Rows of slot machines, usually blinking around the clock in smoky, crowded halls, lay dormant and wrapped in cellophane.