The Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries will be liquidated and online casinos in Ukraine will be restricted. The Verkhovna Rada supported the bill in the first reading. This was reported by Komersant ukrainskyi citing MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak on Telegram.
Bill No. 9256d was passed in the first reading. The document was supported by 272 MPs.
One of the main ideas of the draft law is the liquidation of the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (CRGL).
The document also includes restrictions on gambling in Ukraine, including
- restrictions on gambling advertising (including the inadmissibility of speculation on the topic of war and volunteering) and a ban on sponsorship;
- defining additional tools to restrict visits to gambling facilities and participation in gambling for potentially vulnerable categories of the population during the period of martial law;
- improvement of tools for controlling the gambling business (control purchases, monitoring of the Internet);
- establishing additional criteria for the cancellation of licences, improving the requirements for impeccable business reputation of officials of gambling organisers, establishing requirements for gambling service providers.
We would like to add that CRGL was established after the legalisation of the gambling business in 2020. During this time, the commission managed to get involved in a scandal with the issuance of a licence to the 1XBet network. 1XBet had ultimate beneficiaries in Russia.
The proposal to liquidate the CRAIL was announced by the Ministry of Digital Transformation back in 2022. The draft law on the liquidation of the commission was submitted to parliament on 1 May 2023. However, the Verkhovna Rada approved another draft law that not only liquidates CRLT but also contains restrictions against gambling.
On 29 March this year, Pavlo Petrychenko registered a petition on the website of the official website of the President of Ukraine, calling for a ban on gambling and access to online casinos for military personnel during martial law, a ban on gambling advertising using the symbols of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and a ban on charitable foundations cooperating with gambling market participants.
Petrychenko argued that online casinos have gained wide popularity among the military, and there are cases where servicemen spend their entire allowance on gambling and even take out loans.
In a few hours, the petition gained the required 25,000 signatures for consideration.
The author of the petition asked Volodymyr Zelenskyi to submit an urgent bill to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine that would provide for
- a ban on gambling and access to online casinos for military personnel during martial law;
- a ban on gambling advertising using the symbols of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and any symbols or objects related to war and the army, such as uniforms, helmets, machines, etc;
- a ban for charitable foundations to cooperate with gambling market participants;
- prohibition for military units to accept property in the form of charitable aid from gambling market participants or related individuals or legal entities;
- prohibition of any advertising or public references to the fact that gambling market participants provide charitable assistance to military personnel;
- prohibiting pawnshops from accepting drones, thermal imagers and other similar dual-use goods;
- obligation of Internet providers and mobile operators to block websites of illegal casinos.