Hardship fuels gambling fever in Armenia

Every morning dozens of mostly elderly men and women
form a long line in the center of Yerevan in temperatures
below freezing. It is not pension benefits or relief aid that
they are waiting for. Somber and miserable, they are trying
their lack at gambling–an activity that until now was
unthinkable among that social group in Armenia.
One of the many gambling halls in Armenia offers
everybody a free ticket to take part in the opening draw of
bingo. It’s a chance that those mired in poverty cannot
afford not to take.
Bingo halls packed with desperate people are symptomatic
of the nationwide fever for gambling. Lotteries, slot
machines, and casinos are now part of the day-to-day life of
a growing number of Armenians. And the proportion of those
people involved in gambling industry has become so large that
sociologists speak of a major change in the national culture.
Armenia’s persisting social hardships make the industry
one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. That
growth has been particularly visible over the past year.
Snark reported earlier this month that revenues in 1999 from
licensing fees for casinos and gambling halls totaled 87.6
million drams (more than $160,000), while revenues from
lottery licenses amounted to 6 million drams.
Verzhine Marutian, 72, is poor, drawn, and not one’s
idea of a gambler. She was visibly happy when she became one
of two lucky bingo players (out of more than 200
participants) to win 2,000 drams ($4). That sum is almost
equal roughly a third or even half of her monthly pension.
“Life forces us to come here,” said another player, a
man in his 70s who was not lucky that day.
Life also forces many other people to bank on a sudden
windfall. A game known as “lotto” and similar to bingo has
come to be the most popular form of gambling. Those whose
numbers listed on cards are called out in a draw can expect
to win anything from a free lottery ticket to an apartment.
There are now more than a dozen weekly lotto games, all of
them run by private companies and broadcast live on
nationwide television.
Such games have regular slots on state-owned Armenian
National Television, the channel that can be received by the
largest number of people in the country. Every weekday at
7:10 p.m. local time ANT airs the lotto draw. Each day, the
draw is organized by a different company.
While competition is becoming increasingly tough, two
local firms, Family Lotto and Kind Lotto, have emerged as the
market leaders. In a country of just over 3 million
inhabitants, they each sell up to 300,000 tickets a week.
Only a quarter of ticket-holders win something. The main
weekly prize is usually the equivalent of $10,000. More than
a hundred other lucky ticket-holders win television sets,
refrigerators, and washing machines, while thousands of
others have to content themselves with smaller wins.
“This gambling boom results from the hopeless situation
the people are now in,” said Aharon Adibekian, a local
sociologist. “Gambling gives them hope for a better life,
something which they haven’t got from government officials
and politicians in the last 10 years.” The popularity of the
games, Adibekian said, testifies to changes in a national
character that was molded over centuries. A tragic history
taught Armenians to tuck away extra money in the anticipation
of worse times. Reliance on hard work rather than pure luck
was a norm.
Since the transition to the free market has still not
translated into economic benefits for most people, Adibekian
argued, gambling may be perceived to be the most realistic
way of ending the miseries of life. “If things remain as they
are, the younger generation may adopt it as a norm of
behavior,” he warned.
Lottery firms admit that poverty is the major driving
force behind their business. They are also keen to cite the
benefits they bring to the economy. As one Kind Lotto
executive put it, “a whole army of people” are kept busy
selling lottery tickets. And they sell well, judging by the
abundance of retailers in Yerevan alone. One such ticket
costs 300-500 drams.
Brisk sales are kept up by aggressive advertising, which
gives television channels hefty revenues. In addition, the
lottery firms are major taxpayers. Wealthier Armenians choose
to gamble in casinos and smaller “game houses” that have slot
machines only. According to official figures, there are
nearly 80 such places in Armenia, the bulk of them in the
capital. They, too, have spread rapidly in the last few
years, often at the expense of other businesses. One of
Yerevan’s expensive jewelry shops shrunk its floor space by
half last year to allow slot machines to be installed.
Some casinos violate a government requirement
stipulating that they must be at least 200 meters away from a
school. Nor do they post a notice about the “negative
consequences of visiting a casino,” as is required by law.

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