REN TV will show the investigation "Gambling Mafia: secrets of the underground business" on February 15

The gambling market is one of the most profitable and least transparent businesses. Its annual turnover in our country, according to various sources, reaches 5 trillion rubles! Underground casinos, online platforms, bookmakers, and "gray" gambling halls generate a multibillion-dollar turnover, where a player's winnings are an exception, and losses are embedded in the system. The authors of the film "Gambling Mafia: Secrets of the underground business" analyze in detail the schemes of legal and illegal gambling: how the rules, algorithms and restrictions are set up, why a big win is impossible, how "almost winning", bonuses and quick bets keep a person in the game.

Dmitry Polezhaev, a former owner of an underground casino chain who worked in the industry for eight years and was convicted of illegal gambling, will talk about how everything works from the inside and why a player is doomed to fail.

The owners of the gambling business buy business jets, the best cars in the world, golden cigars, their own wineries and even football clubs. Like, for example, Dmitry Punin, who became the owner of the Cypriot Karmiotissa club and invited Zenit legend Alexander Kerzhakov to coach there.

How do they spend money and where do they get this money from? Why is Interpol looking for Pavel Priluchny's father–in-law Arshak Brutyan, and how is this man connected with the illegal gambling business?

REN TV journalists infiltrated an illegal casino with a hidden camera and will show how an underground point works. They will also explain why, despite regular security raids in such places, the market is recovering quickly and continues to live. Separately, the authors of the film will analyze sports betting: how bookmakers work, how fights in underground clubs are sold and bought, how much the contractual outcome costs and who earns from the loss of players.

A St. Petersburg man lost more than 21 million rubles in a Kaliningrad casino and committed suicide. A 15-year-old schoolgirl in Moscow fatally wounded her father during a conflict over loans he took out for betting. In the Ulyanovsk region, a gambling addict, driven into debt, killed his wife and children and tried to commit suicide. These stories are not exceptions, but the result of severe gambling addiction. Ludomaniacs who have lost tens of millions of rubles on bets and driven not only themselves, but also their loved ones into debt, will tell you why it can be so difficult to quit the game.

Who earns money from gambling and how do games end where the client is always without rights? All the answers are in the movie "Gambling Mafia: Secrets of the underground business", which will be released on REN TV on Sunday, February 15, at 23:55, immediately after the "Final program with Peter Marchenko".