Russian Orthodox Top Brass Says Putin Shouldn’t Legalize Online Gambling

The Russian Orthodox Church has a patchy record, and that is putting it mildly. Yet, the church took the expected position ofthe moral high ground in criticizing a minister who recently pitched a legislation seeking to legalize online gambling in occupied Ukrainian territories, and Russia specifically.

Tis Not Not Holy 

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov recently pitched the proposal, hoping to open a new source of revenue for Russia’s war-starved economy, which has resorted to higher taxes and tight fiscal and monetary policies under the leadership of its central banker, Elvira Nabiullina.

Siluanov is hoping to raise at least $1.3 billion a year by legalizing and taxing gambling, but these plans are now on thin ice after Deputy Head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Department for Relations with Society and the Media, Vakhtang Kipshidze, criticized the move, arguing it would exacerbate social ills such as problem gambling.

Kipshidze added that the money will bleed out of families. In the same stride, Kipshidze also said that the government should focus to do more against illegal gambling, which is firmly entrenched in the country already. 

The clergy also argued that a country that means to “promote traditional values,” a cornerstone of a culture war launched by Russia against the West, means upholding those same values. 

In the meantime, Ukraine has suspected many online casinos available in the country as affiliated with Russia, and indirectly feeding its war machine. Ukraine has embarked on a large-scale gambling reform meant to curb the spread of such websites.