TheEye is an awful poker player. Especially at No-Limit Texas Hold’em. Please invite me to any game you are holding and help yourself to my money because I have no idea what I am doing*.

However at least it is still legal in this parish – unlike in Russia.

From the undroppable The Kommersant we learn that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed the intention of the authorities to ban gambling in Russia. Mikhail Mokretsov, the head of Russia’s Federal Tax Service, signed the law after a meeting with Medvedev.

All casinos and gambling bars must shut down their activities before July 1. Federal Tax Service officers will also take efforts to prevent the appearance of disguised gambling establishments.

Medvedev said on May 6 that the new law would come into force on time. “There will be no way back, no matter how hard certain business structures might lobby such decisions,” the president said.

Official spokesweasels for the Moscow government said that they had the situation “under control”. Deputy Moscow Mayor Sergey Baidakov said that the Moscow authorities would not let the gambling business reappear as sports poker clubs. Those wanting to open a poker club will have to receive a certification at the Department for Physical Culture and Sport of the Moscow government.

Rather like prostitution, you can never kill off the gambling business so in Russia it’s hardly going to cease its existence just because of some random new law. Just as through Prohibition, gamblers will be comfortably accommodated in clandestine gambling clubs that already exist in Moscow and all regions of the country. There will just be more of them fairly sharpish.

*This may or may not be true.