Ukraine is looking to optimise the gambling ban for military personnel by introducing a fully automated restriction system.

A tender has been launched by the gambling regulator PlayCity to find suitable partners and develop a system that will automatically verify if someone is in the military and then restrict them access to gambling.

State-wide compliance and implementation will be ensured through the government’s ‘Trembita’ network, which is a decentralised data exchange platform that connects government databases in Ukraine.

The process will involve a background check against Ukraine’s national list of people who have been restricted from gambling, and then cross-referencing it to the country’s military personnel register.

Following the successful tender and development of the system, PlayCity and the Ministry of Defense will conduct a joint testing phase that will run until 24 December, after which the system is expected to go live.

The latest development adds to a long list of PlayCity initiatives to reduce gambling harm among the Ukraine population since replacing the previous gambling authority, KRAIL.

KRAIL first became active in 2020 after Ukraine legalised gambling for the first time in more than a decade. However, it was disbanded by President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2025 due to the war with Russia leading to conscription orders displacing key KRAIL staff.

In the year since taking over gambling oversight responsibilities, its successor PlayCity has already constituted compliance breaches worth millions of pounds spanning back years under KRAIL supervision.

Another key PlayCity project saw the rollout of the State Online Monitoring System that provides transparency into the work of licensed operators.

The regulator has also teamed up with global tech partners like Kick and YouTube to reduce the prominence of illegal gambling ads targeting the Ukraine population.