Las Vegas Review Journal – Somehow, “What happens in Crimea, stays in Crimea,” doesn’t seem like an appropriate catchphrase. In April, a month after Russia forcibly annexed the Black Sea peninsula away from Ukraine, President Valdimir Putin said he wants to turn the territory into his own version of Las Vegas. He wasn’t talking about replacing “Thunder From Down Under” with the “Shirtless Putin Dancers.” Putin crusaded against gambling in 2006, leading to the closure of most Russian casinos and slot machine parlors. He called gambling a “dangerous addiction and a magnet for organized crime.” Now, he wants to create…

Poker News – The 2014 Winter Olympics are underway in Sochi, Russia, but the action might heat up even more in the Eurasia nation come 2018. NagaCorp Ltd. has invested roughly $350 million in Russia, and the casino operator plans to start building a gaming resort in the western part of the country as early as 2015. The company plans to cater to their most popular customers from South Korea, Japan, and Northeast China. The resort property is scheduled to open in 2018, and will resemble the bird-nest national stadium built for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, while the…

From Wall Street Journal Macau mogul Lawrence Ho is set to become Russia’s first well-known casino operator, as China’s northern neighbor enters the fray competing for the Asian high rollers who made Macau the world’s gambling capital. A company controlled by Mr. Ho signed an agreement to open a casino on the outskirts of Vladivostok, a person familiar with the deal said. The planned casino-resort in Primorye—a vast eastern region bordering China and Korea—is scheduled to open in the second half of next year. It will be one of the first in Russia after the country in 2009 banned casino…