{"id":43454,"date":"2017-01-05T15:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T23:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=43454"},"modified":"2017-01-05T16:31:11","modified_gmt":"2017-01-06T00:31:11","slug":"russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s First Sochi Casino Opens Thursday With High Hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_43458\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-43458\" data-style=\"width: 980px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-43458\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-1024x513.jpg\" alt=\"First Casino Opens in Sochi\" width=\"980\" height=\"491\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-1024x513.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-142x71.jpg 142w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-768x385.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-1536x770.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-2048x1027.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><figcaption  id=\"caption-attachment-43458\"class=\"text-description\">Sochi, once just another dilapidated Black Sea resort, was rejuvenated by the Winter Olympics. Now, as the host of the Russian F1 Grand Prix and the 2018 World Cup, it could become Russia\u2019s foremost gambling destination. (iamboyman.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b><\/b><i><\/i>The Sochi Casino and Resort, the first casino in Russia\u2019s newest dedicated gambling zone, is due to open its doors officially today. Situated in the mountain resort of Gorky Gorod, Sochi, the casino is described by its operator Domain LLC as an \u201centertainment complex of\u00a0a global scale\u201d and a \u201cunique concept for\u00a0Russia in\u00a0the spirit of\u00a0the best casinos of\u00a0Las Vegas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The five-star complex boasts restaurants, cabaret theatre, convention space, shops and other amenities, and represents the newest phase in Russia\u2019s zonal casino experiment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Russia cracked down on gambling in 2009, closing down casinos, card clubs and electronic gaming halls in its major cities. All gambling was exiled to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/crimea-become-russian-gambling-zone\">four specific economic zones<\/a>: Azov City in the Krasnodar region; Primorye near the Pacific port of Vladivostok; Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea coast; and Altai in Siberia.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Cashing in on Grand Prix and World Cup <\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sochi-gambling-zone-created\">Sochi, which hosted the Winter Olympics in 2014<\/a>, was not originally in the mix. Although it is situated in the Krasnodar region, it is some 430 miles south of Azov City, where the first new casinos were built. Until it was rejuvenated in preparation for the Winter Olympics, Sochi was just another dilapidated seaside resort on the Black Sea.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"main-blockquote\">\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>Putin, who has a personal dislike of gambling, initially said in the immediate aftermath of the games, that there were no plans for casinos in Sochi and that it would remain a \u201cfamily resort.\u201d But later that year, he signed a law permitting casinos in Sochi, as well as in Crimea, in a bid to make the area newly annexed from Ukraine economically self-sufficient.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p1\">Last year, the Russian government said the Azov City gaming zone would be liquidated by 2019 in order to focus gaming operations in Sochi, perhaps to capitalize on its status as a host city of the 2018 Fifa World Cup and Russian Formula 1 Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Azov City\u2019s three casinos would be compensated for the inconvenience, the government said.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><b>Tourist Boom<\/b><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cTourism traffic increased significantly during the last several years and the demand for holidays in Russia and particularly in Sochi is very high,\u201d Evgeniy Kudelya, head of Russia\u2019s Federal Tourism Agency, told Russian news agency TASS last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>\u201c[Casinos] will make a major contribution to the solution of \u2026 the off-season problem. Despite the fact that Sochi is the most popular and one of the best resort [areas in Russia], we have the off-season curve and it should be smoothed out.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">In March last year, Lawrence Ho\u2019s $900 million resort, Tigre de Cristal, became the first casino to open in Russia\u2019s Primorsky Krai zone on the country\u2019s south east coast, close to the border with China and North Korea and 30 miles north-east of the city of Vladivostok.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Sochi Casino and Resort, the first casino in Russia\u2019s newest dedicated gambling zone, is due to open its doors officially today. Situated in the mountain resort of Gorky Gorod, Sochi, the casino is described by its operator Domain LLC as an \u201centertainment complex of\u00a0a global scale\u201d and a \u201cunique concept for\u00a0Russia in\u00a0the spirit of\u00a0the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":43458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,18],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Russia\u2019s First Sochi Casino Opens Today With High Hopes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Sochi Casino and Resort opens its doors today in the former host city of the Winter Olympics in a reversal of Putin&#039;s previous edict.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Russia\u2019s First Sochi Casino Opens Today With High Hopes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Sochi Casino and Resort opens its doors today in the former host city of the Winter Olympics in a reversal of Putin&#039;s previous edict.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-01-05T23:00:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-06T00:31:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1284\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Casino.org Staff Writer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/\",\"name\":\"Russia\u2019s First Sochi Casino Opens Today With High Hopes\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-01-05T23:00:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-06T00:31:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/8c48bf89dc86da77b4d856c7b3b78d77\"},\"description\":\"The Sochi Casino and Resort opens its doors today in the former host city of the Winter Olympics in a reversal of Putin's previous edict.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/russias-first-sochi-casino-opens-today\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/sochi-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1284,\"caption\":\"Sochi, once just another dilapidated Black Sea resort, was rejuvenated by the Winter Olympics. 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