The issue of preventing and overcoming gambling addiction (ludomania) arose during the preparation of the draft law on the legalization of the gambling market in Ukraine. Therefore, the Law of Ukraine "On State Regulation of Activities in the Field of Organizing and Conducting Gamling" No. 768-IX adopted by the Parliament defined the fight against gambling addiction as one of the nine principles of state policy in the field of organizing and conducting gambling.
To this end, the national regulator, the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (CRGL), has been given a number of obligations and powers. Among them, the most important are:
- the obligation to establish requirements for market organizers to combat severe gambling addiction;
- development, implementation and monitoring of compliance with the principles of responsible gambling;
- organizing, maintaining and keeping the Register of persons who have restricted access to gambling facilities and/or participation in gambling (hereinafter referred to as the Register).
In addition, the CRGL must report annually on the number of people included in the Register, as well as on the measures taken to prevent and combat gambling addiction.
However, given the social importance and significance of gambling addiction prevention activities, the Commission publishes reports on the prevention and fight against gambling addiction more often. In particular, it recently submitted statistics on changes in the Register for January-June 2024. According to official data, as of July 01, 2024, the Register contains information about 7,874 people. This year, information on 4,585 people was added to the Register. Of these, data on 4,270 people was entered into the Register based on applications received by the CRL, and on 315 people - based on applications received by gambling organizers.
The vast majority of those who were included in the Register provided information about themselves on their own, through statements of self-restraint. Surprisingly, only 41 people (less than 1% of the total number) were included in the Register based on applications from their relatives.
As for the gender distribution, men make up about 85% of potential gambling addicts, and women almost 15%. The overwhelming majority, or 81%, of applicants chose a period of three years for self-restraint, which indicates a high degree of responsibility of our citizens who subject themselves to such a strict disciplinary measure for the sake of prevention.
Accordingly, this statistic indicates the actual establishment of the real volume of problem gamblers who are responsible for solving the problem of overcoming gambling addiction.
Such a mechanism is a result of the implementation of the gambling reform aimed at the formation and development of a full-fledged civilized gambling market in Ukraine. It is the emergence of legal gambling and the fight against illegal gambling organizers that contributed to the improvement of the gambling culture among players and the use of the self-restriction mechanism for prevention purposes.
It is unfortunate that all these achievements are regularly torpedoed by the presence of an unregulated lottery sector, which is not part of the gambling market in Ukraine, so it is not subject to the tools of gambling addiction control and prevention. Because of this, lotteries have been and remain perhaps the most affordable option for playing for money, and it is virtually impossible to determine the level of gambling addiction among such players. This is a rather significant problem, given the fact that lotteries traditionally have higher prevalence rates in Ukraine due to the massive scale and accessibility of services.
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