A little less than a century ago, Western leaders feared that Russia would export its revolution; these days, at least in Latin America, they're more concerned that it may be exporting its gambling problem. Moscow banned casinos in most of its national territory last July, confining the multi-billion dollar industry to Siberia. Since then, gambling operations have been trying to win back lost profits in Europe and Latin America. And not everyone is happy about it.
"Bolivia is a gambling company's paradise," says an exasperated Marco Antonio Cardenas, the director of the National Lottery of Bolivia, which also regulates casinos. In the last year, he says, gambling operations here have nearly doubled — there are now more than 80 casinos and about 10,000 gambling machines in his country of 9 million people. And Cardenas attributes the rise to foreign investors taking advantage of Bolivia's loose regulations. Once a gambling company is granted a license to operate, there are no limits on the number of sites it can open in Bolivia.
Bolivia's laissez-faire gambling market is good news for companies such as Moscow-based Ritzio International, the largest casino operator in Eastern Europe. Ritzio does $1.2 billion in business annually at its 1,000 venues worldwide. The Russian giant is the majority shareholder in Lotex S.A., whose 15 purple and orange Bingo Bahiti clubs have become a fixture in Bolivia's major cities over the past two years. Inside the venues, large Bingo rooms are the main attraction, although there are also hundreds of blinking slot machines and other automated games that accept dollars or bolivianos . The casinos are rarely packed but do draw a steady crowd, officials say.
Ritzio says its international expansion is not tied to curbs on gambling inside Russia. "The [prohibition] law has intensified the process of our internationalization, but not radically," a Ritzio spokesman says, explaining that when Russia announced the ban in late 2006, the company already had assets in eight countries. (Today, that number is 15, including Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Mexico).
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