As of July 1st, as promised by the Russian President, gambling has been thoroughly stamped out in Russia. With brutal speed and stealth the scourge of slot machines and neon gambling houses were completely wiped out – overnight. Up until July, there were 109 casinos in St. Petersburg and 513 in Moscow alone and the whole of the Russian gambling industry was estimated by some to employ almost 400,000 people. Although Moscow and St. Petersburg were both home to glittering mansions of excess such as the infamous Metelitsa, one of the biggest and oldest casinos on Moscow’s dazzling Las Vegasky strip Novy Arbat, the majority of Russia’s casinos were little more than tiny neon-lit slot machine bars. Until the ban finally came into force you could find busy branches of the ubiquitous ‘Crazy Fruits’ or ‘Vulkan’ chain literally everywhere – even in provincial train stations or at the airport. In fact the spread of the one-armed bandits was so wide that the first thing you saw after crossing through customs at the Estonian border was a ‘Crazy fruits’ super slot house.

The heady days of putting your room in a communal flat on the line, to play one last hand of black jack whilst watching dancers do the Copacabana under the twinkly lights of a thousand neon bulbs are over. According to the new laws all forms of gambling, except for the purchase of lottery tickets and sporting bets, are now illegal. The government has created four special gambling zones on the edges of the world’s largest country, which it hopes will transform in to Vegas style enclaves of hedonistic spending and keep the rest of Russia’s streets ‘clean’. These special areas are; Kaliningrad, Krasnodar (on the Sea of Azov), Primorskiye on the far eastern Pacific coast and the Altai region of Siberia. The popularity of these places is still disputed however – how many hard-core Russian gamblers would travel all the way to Siberia to spend their last Roubles on the roulette wheel? Most pundits are instead predicting a growth in underground gambling speak-easies. Word on the street is that many secret members-only poker clubs and high-rolling roulette networks are already open and taking bets, but In Your Pocket has yet to see any.

And what of the shimmering towers of our favourite Moscow casino Metelitsa and rest of Moscow’s Las Vegasky strip Novy Arbat? Despite saying as recently as the last week of June that they hoped to stay open as a Sports Bar, the interior has since been gutted, the tables packed away and the last orders have been called. Anyone wishing to rent a giant centrally-located palace with three restaurants, a night club, acres of parking space and a power supply large enough to light up the moon, need look no further.