Ibragimov stands glued to the flashing lights of a slot machine at the X-Time club in Moscow as he pumps in rubles and tries to match three toadstools, girls in swimsuits or Egyptian treasures to win a jackpot.

``I like it for the adrenaline rush,’’ says Ibragimov, a 50- year-old building foreman who makes the one-hour trip from his home in Zvenigorod at least once a week.

That thrill has created about 3 million gambling addicts in Russia, the NarcoDen rehabilitation center in Moscow says. It also sparked a drive by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev to banish gaming to four special zones in Russia’s hinterlands by July 2009.

Russia’s two biggest gambling companies, Storm International and Ritzio Entertainment Group, are fighting back, saying they will move their casinos, and the taxes they generate, abroad if the rules aren’t relaxed. Gambling revenue quadrupled to 185 billion rubles ($7.8 billion) in the six years through 2006, according to the Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Union.