Mao Zedong
(1893-1976)
Mao Zedong was born on the 26th of December, 1893, in the village of Shaoshan of Hunan Province situated in the south of the country. Great helmsman, revolutionary – Marxist came to power in 1949 when gambling was already forbidden in the country. The creator of communistic China did rather a lot for getting into the list of the sternest rulers of the 20th century; however, as a fighter against gambling industry Mao did not distinguish himself in any way, simply leaving the ban in force. Frankly speaking, Mao had more important matters in the country.

Kim Ir Sen
(1912-1994)
The creator of North-Korean communism was born on the 15th of April, 1912, near Pyongyang. The author of Korean doctrine about Juche and supporter of Marxism-Leninism was not an admirer of gambling. During the rule of Kim Ir Sen operation of gambling-houses was out of the question, however, the son of the great North-Korean chief Kim Chen Ir after his fathers death still opened a casino. Famous Chinese millionaire Stanly Ho helped him with opening of the first gambling-house in 1999. Although, it was not allowed for aborigines to play in North-Korean casinos, but there are a lot of Chinese players there.

Fidel Castro
(1926)
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on the 13th of August, 1926 in a Cuban settlement of Biran. Since childhood Fidel was a purposeful young man, seeing his destination in the fight for liberation of the Cuban people.

Before the victory of the revolution during the rule of Batista all Cuban casinos belonged to Americans. A consultant of the acting president on gambling industry was none other than Meyer Lansky, a notorious American gangster.

Castro came to power on the 1st of January, 1959, when under attack of the revolutionary army under his command the dictatorship of Batista was over.

Having become firmly established in power, firstly, in 1959 Fidel Castro banned gambling industry – and he had his own reasons for that: struggle against Americanism. From the end of February till May of 1959 casinos were opened for some time, but finished their accounting periods with negative results and were ultimately and definitely closed down.

Until now in one of the most beautiful countries of the world attracting large tourist flows there are no casinos. Why is it so? This question should be, evidently, addressed to the Cuban president.

Saddam Hussein
(1937-2006)
Saddam Hussein was born on the 28th of April, 1937, in the Iraqi village al-Awja in the south of Tikrit region. He came to power in 1968 and changed the life of the country beyond recognition. While he was in power Iraqi became the noticeable power in the Near East, but Hussein “become famous” not for this. Genocide concerning Kurds, war against Iran, occupation of Kuwait, maximal possible totalitarianism placed the name of the born in poverty boy on the first page of the book about bloody crimes of the 20th century.

At the beginning of Saddams rule there was opened a race track in the country, as well as a casino the existence of which is so difficult to believe in now as well as in the fact that Hussein was once the best friend of the Soviet government.