UKRAINE PROTESTS (Update)
22 May 2009
Thousands march to protest gambling ban
The Ukraine government's abrupt ban yesterday on
gambling other than in a specially delineated location
(see previous InfoPowa report) has resulted in thousands
of employees of gaming halls and casinos staging protest
marches and demonstrations in the country's capital,
reports Reuters new service
According to the
weekly economic journal Expert, 4 000 companies operate
around 13 000 gaming halls in Ukraine.
Protestors
in Kiev chanted slogans in front of President Viktor
Yushchenko's residence, as they demanded he veto the law
passed by Parliament this week that sets out the ban.
The parliamentary decision has to be ratified by the
president before passing into law. Another demonstration
by about 600 people took place in the eastern city of
Donetsk.
One of the Kiev demonstrators, the
manager of a gaming hall in the southern city of Odessa
said: "We find ourselves without work in the space of
one day, without any prior warning." She added: "We have
children to feed, and credit to repay."
Anatoly
Nesterenko, president of the Ukrainian Casinos
Association, said the ban "will leave more than 200 000
Ukrainians without work".
Lawmakers who backed
the ban said they were worried about a "sudden rise in
the number of slot machines" and that they wanted to
protect "the population's morale and health".
An
analysis attached to the legislation says that
three-quarters of slot machine players are university or
school students. It also claims that in cities with 500
000 or more people, 5 percent of the population is
addicted to gambling. The source of this information is
not clear.
Reuters reports that if the ban goes
ahead, it would apply until the expected introduction of
proposed special zones for gaming halls.
Online Casino News Courtesy of
Infopowa
More news here.
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