The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy voted to liquidate the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (CRGL).
About this wrote Deputy Chairman of the Committee, MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak, wrote on Telegram.
The decision was made unanimously.
The powers of the CRAIL are planned to be transferred to the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
There are other important things in the draft law:
- Restrictions on gambling advertising (including the inadmissibility of speculation on the topic of war and volunteering) and a ban on sponsorship;
- Identifying additional tools to restrict visits to gambling facilities and participation in gambling for potentially vulnerable categories of the population during martial law;
- improving the tools for controlling the gambling business (control purchases, monitoring the Internet);
- establishing additional criteria for license revocation, improving the requirements for impeccable business reputation of officials of gambling organizers, and establishing requirements for gambling service providers.
Now the draft law must be considered by the Verkhovna Rada and supported in the first and second reading.
After the president signs it, it will come into force. However, there may be some obstacles.
«But all of this will work in practice only and only simultaneously with an effective fight against shadowing. Miscoding has been almost shut down, but dropships and krypto are still flying. Otherwise, the restrictions may push some people into the shadows, which is not the purpose of the law. Therefore, we will introduce regulations to further limit financial gateways,» the MP emphasized.
As a reminder, on March 29, a petition «Restrictions on online casinos» appeared on the website of the President’s Office, calling for restrictions on the gambling business. The petition was created by Pavlo Petrichenko, a soldier of the 59th Brigade. He said that it was not moderated for 10 days. But within a few hours of its publication, it gained 25 thousand votes, which is required for consideration by the head of state.
In the evening, Zelenskyy responded to the petition and instructed the SBU, the State Special Communications Service, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and the National Security and Defense Council to analyze the issue of online casinos.
The Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov supported the idea of eliminating the KRAIL and proposed to automate the issuance of gambling licenses. The government supported the draft law of the Ministry of Digital Transformation and sent it to the parliament for consideration.