In Ukraine, the state agency “PlayCity” was created to replace the liquidated KRAIL

The Cabinet of Ministers has formed the State Agency of Ukraine PlayCity, which will be responsible for the implementation of state policy in the field of gambling and lotteries, instead of the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries, which was liquidated by the Verkhovna Rada in December last year. This was reported by the government representative in the Verkhovna Rada Taras Melnychuk, reports UNN.

Details

“The State Agency of Ukraine PlayCity has been established as the central executive body, (…) which implements state policy in the field of organization and conduct of gambling and lottery sphere”, – said Melnychuk.

According to him, the activities of the new agency will be directed and coordinated by the Cabinet of Ministers through the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for Innovation, Development of Education, Science and Technology – Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.

People’s Deputy Oleksiy Honcharenko reported that the new body in 2025 will be within the budget of the liquidated KRAIL. The number of employees of the agency will be 61 people (the same number was reduced in KRAIL). They will be located where KRAIL was.

According to the state budget for 2025, the budget of KRAIL for this year was to be UAH 160 million 388.4 thousand. 

Addition

In February, the Cabinet of Ministers assigned to the Ministry of Digital Development the functions of ensuring the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of organization and conduct of gambling and lottery sphere instead of the liquidated KRAIL. At the same time, a part of budgetary allocations provided for KRAIL for 2025, in the amount of UAH 14 million 347.9 thousand, was transferred.

Prior to that, in December, the Verkhovna Rada adopted a law providing for the liquidation of KRAIL from April 1, 2025, the creation of a new body, strengthening the responsibility for gambling organizers, and banning gambling advertising.

According to the draft law, it was envisaged to create a “central body of executive power that ensures the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of organization and conduct of gambling and lottery sphere, as well as an authorized body within its powers defined by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine”.

In January, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed Law No. 9256-d on the liquidation of KRAIL from April 1, 2025.

The head of the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries Ivan Rudy in 2024 was detained for supporting the activities in Ukraine of an online casino from the Russian Federation. The court sent Rudy to a pre-trial detention center without the right to bail.

Let’s add

UNN back in 2022 drew attention to the inaction of KRAIL in the context of another Russian casino 1Xbet, which tried to operate in Ukraine through LLC “Your betting company” and to which KRAIL issued a license. Then the Commission stubbornly did not see the Russian connections.

And only after the personal intervention of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Bureau of Economic Security, the permits for work in Ukraine were finally annulled.

In 2023, 1Xbet was sanctioned .