Ukraine establishes the foundation for their first Gambling Commission

The ministers of Ukraine's parliament approved a secondary decree “on the formation of a gambling and lottery commission”. It will serve as the state’s legal entity to monitor gambling activities under licensing.

The UGLC will be operating with regulatory limits, legislative authority, structuring, and funding. It will all be about handling licensing controls from here on out before the Ukraine government launches the federal regulated gambling marketplace.

They will also be responsible for monitoring operators and their compliance against the market’s conduct and fulfillment of regulatory requirements that go under the licensing agreements.

The decree noted that the UGLC will be permitted to carry out enforcement procedures within its remit, but underlined that the agency held no powers to conduct criminal proceedings.

Managing partner of CIS law firm 4H Agency, Ilya Machavariani, made the following review: “It remains unclear what kind of decisions would be permissible for UGLC to make and what kind of decisions UGLC is going to make. However, UGLC most certainly would not be able to override provisions of the Law,”

The parliament approved proposals which stated that the UGLC will be led by an “agency director” serving a four-year term, who will be voted on by the Cabinet of Ministers in accordance with the Gambling Law. The agency director will be limited to two terms leading the UGLC. 

Ukraine’s government confirmed that it will establish a new Kyiv office which will be home to the UGLC and its executive team of six members, who will be tasked with developing ‘regional units’ monitoring gambling activities. 

Machavariani added: “The UGLC powers appear to be declarative owing to the decree’s nature – they sound more like objectives or goals rather than actual legislative instruments; however the decree communicates an important message that Ukraine is looking to create a new and transparent international market.”

International Gambling

All governments know that their citizens are accessing and playing on foreign betting sites no matter which is the country and their rules, the players are always going to find a way to access those gambling sites in case that they are forbidden by the local government.

With just a simple VPN or a proxy players can by-pass the restriction of their government in case that their country has banned online gambling, for this reason the Ukraine government as many other governments across the whole world are taking another approach.

The Ukraine government as other governments including now some states of the United States are starting to accept, regulate and tax all the online gambling sites including online casinos, sportsbooks, bingos and others.

Ukranian Market

The Ukranian market is not that big compared to the Canadian market or to the Europe market but it is a new market that not many online gambling sites are aware of but with these new regulations the country is opening more to this kind of activities and it is for sure that we are going to see more online gambling sites from Ukraine or focused to the Ukrainian market.

Keep in mind that you should always check the terms and conditions area to see if your country or region is accepted in case that your country allows online gambling site and the casino or sportsbook do not accept your country, don’t join that one unless you want to take the risk.