Betting and gaming industry stakeholders with interests in the CIS and Eastern Europe regions will have to wait for confirmation on Ukrainian Gambling Law amendments.

Bill 2713-д, a piece of draft legislation which would see changes to the provisions of the national legislation on gambling as well as the Tax Code, was due to be voted upon by Ukrainian representatives in the Verkhovna Rada national legislature on Friday, 3 December.

However, the parliamentarians spent the majority of the day’s parliamentary session hearing details on other developments, and so the vote on the gambling requirements and taxation amendments Bill did not go ahead despite being on the legislative agenda for the day.

“We are constantly monitoring the situation with everything that concerns gambling regulations in Ukraine and today we were expecting it to finally unfold into something more meaningful than another delay,” said Ilya Machavariani, SBC Brand Ambassador to CIS, CEO & Senior Partner at 4H Agency.

“Unfortunately, the Parliament has run out of time to hear the Bill 2713-д today. We’ll see if it finally gets to the voting in two weeks’ time. At the moment, the prospects of that are rather grim.”

First introduced last August, Ukrainian betting and gaming stakeholders have been continually frustrated by repeated delays to the overhaul of Ukraine’s taxation and technical requirements, whilst international operators have been unable to fully commence operations in the newly re-regulated sector.

The vote had been previously delayed until the end of November before being scheduled for 3 December, and current developments mean Ukrainian betting and gaming stakeholders will have to wait for an undetermined period of time for clarity on the country’s taxation situation for operators. 

Bill 2713-д received majority support from Ukrainian MPs during its first reading during the summer as has the country’s Committee of Finance, Customs and Taxes, the latter of which has backed proposed amendments which would remove ‘triple lock’ licencing fees and set a flat 10% tax rate across all regulated gambling verticals.

Commenting earlier this year, Ivan Rudyi, Chairman of the Ukraine Gambling and Lotteries Regulation Commission (KRAIL) – the gambling regulatory authority of Ukraine – stated that one thing that can be certain from legislative developments is that the country will ‘not be a 1,000 licence marketplace’. 

Additionally, the Chairman pointed out that the fact that betting and gaming has been illegal in Ukraine for 10 years has compounded issues, saying: “We have faced numerous hurdles, but our perspective has always been to protect the rights of citizens and to have transparent conditions to monitor a competent gambling industry.”