Resolution on gambling regulations

Diena.lv informs:

Church: the economic crisis is becoming a spiritual crisis.
Concerned that Latvia's economic crisis is leading residents into a spiritual crisis, the Union of Baptist Churches in Latvia (LBDS) has adopted and signed a Resolution on reviewing gambling regulations and tightening their control.

Church pastors throughout Latvia increasingly hear families asking for help for relatives to escape gambling addiction. In Latvia today families are being evicted from apartments lost through gambling, children are going hungry because family budget money has been gambled away, church representatives point out.

Although gambling is controlled by state supervisory institutions, the Church in Latvia believes that this is not being done sufficiently; therefore the Resolution adopted at the LBDS Congress and signed by Bishop Pēteris Sproģis has already been supported by Zbigņevs Stankevičs, Archbishop-Metropolitan of the Roman Catholic Church in Latvia, Metropolitan Alexander of the Latvian Orthodox Church, the Bishops' College of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, Bishop Jānis Ozolinkēvičs of the Latvian Pentecostal Churches Association, as well as the Latvian Christian Medical Association, the Latvian Christian Teachers Association, and the Latvian Evangelical Alliance. The Resolution will be submitted to the Saeima of the Republic of Latvia, the National Radio and Television Council, and sent to Latvian President Valdis Zatlers.

In the Resolution, LBDS calls on the Saeima of the Republic of Latvia to set the age limit for participation in gambling at 21 years instead of the current 18. LBDS believes that the gambling law must be supplemented and, by force of Latvian law, it must be determined that gambling may not be organized closer than 100 meters from state institutions, churches, religious buildings, educational institutions, medical institutions, cultural institutions, railway stations, bus stations, airports, ports and other places already defined as places where gambling cannot be organized.

For totalizators, prediction games, bingo, games of chance and others, such airtime in electronic and other mass media should be set to ensure that minors are not addressed. Preferably after 23:00.

Likewise, LBDS demands the creation of a fund that would direct 25% of collected taxes and license revenues to targeted and high-quality work with addicts and their co-dependent families.

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