Recently the Parliament has approved a bill of Gambling Law, which is to legalize the casinos and to set the order of gambling.

What concerns legalization of gambling, Lithuania will soon join the neighbor Baltic countries. On October 22nd the Ministry of Finance presented the project of Gambling Law. This project is the basic document for introducing the gambling and taxes on gambling money. Now the discussions are being conducted in Lithuanian Parliament, the Seimas. As soon as the project was introduced, the Lithuanian Bishop Conference announced the disapproval of gambling legislature and the process of gambling as such. "Gambling is the big source for immorality which leads to crime, drug addiction, suicide, etc." – their point was. The Catholic Church is aware of crime increasing the in Lithuania, but meanwhile approves the new income to be received from gambling. Every year the state budget should get more than 25 million Lt (about 6,25 million USD). Even thought there is only a project of a law, some observations can be made, because it, possibly, cannot be changed very much. The main principles of gambling and their legislation are the same as in all countries. Of course, this project can be vetoed by President, but the President was living and working in the USA, the country known for it's Las Vegas – the capital of gambling, so there a is strong belief that he will not use this right to disable this project. The project (may I call it a "law" already?..) of Gambling Law describes the conditions of gambling and the money from gambling control. First of all, different kinds of gambling are described: gambling machines, bingo, roulette, totalizator, card games and dice. The appropriate conditions of playing these kinds of games should also be created. The companies, establishing gambling houses should also fit some requirements: the authorized capital of the company which will have gambling machines only and totalizator must be not less than 1,5 million Lt (about 375 000 USD), casinos with table games: roulette, dice and cards must have 4 million Lt (1 million USD) authorized capital. The facilities also should fit requirements: the room must have two entrances for the case of fire, must have emergency systems installed, air conditioning, cameras shooting every table in casino, every machine must have a certificate, approved by the state in order to avoid cheating and any kind of fraud. The employees of the casino must be with impeccable reputation, without charges of prosecution, especially when he or she is working with finances. If the person was charged and even sentenced by court for some jeopardy, he or she may not work in casino. The casino can be entered by persons not younger than 21, but in the project of this Law is also said that gambling is prohibited for persons under 18. That means, totalizator and gambling machines are accessible to people from 18. Age limit is very important not only because of moral sides of gambling, but also of responsibility of playing person. All people entering casino should be registered. The registration data is secret for society, it cannot be revealed to the third parties, unless some of people must be recognized by police officers investigating the unauthorized actions of the person. For the same reason video cameras should be installed to monitor every gambling table. All the violations of rules should be investigated by the special State Gambling Monitoring Office. Also this office must observe the conditions of casinos, provide the licenses and certificates for gambling equipment, also check how everything is going on anonymously. The officers can check the accounts of casinos and require showing the records of observation cameras, which must be kept for one year according to the project of Gambling Law. The officers cannot play themselves unless they are on duty – checking the casinos. The State Gambling Monitoring Office has the right to close the casino if it does not fit requirements or at least warn the owner to take some measures in order to improve the situation. There is a special tax system of casinos introduced in this project. The taxing is regulated by the separate law, which still is also a project. The basic idea of this law is that half of taxes should be paid directly to budget and other half to local municipality. Also, persons who have won more than 5000 Litas should report about this to local Tax office. Both of these projects now are being discussed, so certainly some articles and even principles can be changed. Legalizing casinos became possible only when liberals and social liberals made the majority coalition in the Parliament. The Conservative party in the previous Parliament was against the legalization, but now things have changed. Legalizing casinos and making them one of biggest sources of supplement of the budget can give the beginning for acceptance of the other kinds of so called "immoral" businesses as useful for society. Lithuania cannot become Holland, but the first steps have been already made.