The decision to liquidate the state regulator of Ukraine KRAIL and a number of amendments within the framework of bill No. 9256-d raise questions among experts. According to lawyer and co-founder of the public organization “Center for Research of Ukrainian Legislation” Nazar Cherny, the adopted bill does not solve the main problems of regulating the gambling sector and needs to be improved.
As a background, from the beginning of 2022, officials included the gambling business in the list of those eligible for tax breaks - casinos could pay only 2% of income, which, together with the lack of control over profit volumes, opened up great prospects. The gambling business remained in such conditions for almost a year, which ended with the indignation of officials that the business took advantage of the benefits provided to it.
Bill No. 9256-d does not solve the main problem - abuse of access to online casinos by the military
The proposed bill is far from what was discussed in the petition to limit the operation of online casinos during martial law . Almost half of the provisions concern changes in the operation of lotteries and the creation of separate regulation for this market segment. Together with the speed of registration of the bill, this gives reason to assume that the petition and its popularity were taken advantage of to promote their own ideas and interests, says Nazar Cherny.
As for limiting military personnel’s access to online casinos, which was the key demand of the petition, bill No. 9256-d does not actually solve this problem. According to the proposal of the authors of the bill, this issue should be resolved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, as well as by the body that is only planned to be created 3 months after the adoption of the bill. Considering the mentioned time frame, the emergence of a working mechanism for limiting participation in gambling for the military can be expected no earlier than 2025.
The ban on online advertising requires clarification
The same can be said about the ban on advertising of gambling on the Internet in general: in relation to online media, social networks, streaming services. The absence of effective mechanisms to control such a ban will only lead to the growth of the illegal segment of gambling, the organizers of which will be beyond the control of the regulatory authorities of Ukraine.
At the very least, the bill should be supplemented with a list of exceptions regarding permissible places for advertising online, because in the current version of the bill, even the presence of a gambling organizer’s own website can be considered a violation, says Cherny.
Current license terms must be maintained.
It is worth noting that the updated legislation of Ukraine introduces additional restrictions on gambling organizers that did not exist when they received licenses. Since the latter were issued in accordance with the legislation in force at that time, and the principle of irreversibility of the law in time is one of the fundamental ones, a reservation should be made that additional restrictions apply only when the grounds for their application arose after the entry into force of the bill.
This will avoid violating the principle of legal certainty, which, along with the principle of irreversibility of action in time, is fundamental, and will also not allow manipulating legal norms to put pressure on Ukrainian market participants for the purpose of its redistribution.
Fresh additions to the bill
During the preparation of the material, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy held a working group on draft law N9256-d. The head of the Committee, Daniil Getmantsev, published the following conclusions:
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