Tuvan deputies of the Legislative Chamber of the Tuvan Bicameral Parliament voted for the 5-year moratotium on gambling in Tuva. If the new legislature be supported by the Representative Chamber of the Khural and signed by the Tuvan Prime-Minister, it will come into force on the 1st January of 2007.
Representative of the Government Ludmila Salchak, minister for trade and services, remarked that the executive power does not suport this initiative as it contradicts principles of the free undertaking. Deputies netheless did not change their monds, they stressed that gambling in Tuva turned into an ordinary leg-pulling and pumping money out system. It mostly concerns the poorest layers of the population who are frequenters in gambling halls. 100 million rouble is taken annually from the Tuvan families budgets.
Kaadyr-ool Bicheldei underlined that the gambling contradicts the Tuvan mentality. Although in Tuva there have always been games of chances - panchyk, tevek, playing card, they have had a competetive air and were games between people. Now it comes to a game between a man and a machine. And not on equal conditions.