Gambling legalization in Ukraine, which took place two years ago after 11 years of illegal domestic gambling, began with the introduction of some security criteria for those who were going to use the services of gambling establishments.
It is because both the State and entrepreneurs understood their responsibility to society and tried to avoid in advance errors in the regulatory policy and business practices that caused the ban on the gambling market in 2009.
According to the preamble to the Law of Ukraine “On State Regulation of Activities in the Organization and Conduct of Gambling”, the Law defines not only the legal framework for state regulation of economic activities in the field of organization and conduct of gambling in Ukraine but also the economic, social and institutional conditions for gambling.
State gambling policy also aims to create conditions for reducing social risks associated with its activities. That is, such a policy is based on social responsibility, and the latter cannot be one-sided and must contain guarantees from both the State and business.
That is why the national regulator (Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries, CRGL), licensed gambling operators, and their professional associations, particularly the Ukrainian Gambling Council (UGC), are working together to achieve this goal.
One of the key tasks of social responsibility is to prevent gambling addiction (ludopathy) and provide psychological assistance to gamblers and their families.
Sociological studies are periodically carried out to determine the depth and prevalence of gambling addiction. For instance, at the end of July this year, CRGL launched an anonymous online survey on gambling addiction which required feedback from gamblers and market participants. The answers will help to set the national regulator’s priorities for further work in this area.
For its part, during 2021-2022, UGC uniting more than 80% of licensed domestic gambling operators has already conducted two studies on the Ukrainians’ attitude toward gambling.
The results of both surveys proved that from October last year (the time of the first survey) to February this year (the time of the second one) there was no significant change in the percentage of those who have never gambled over the past 12 months (92.3% in October 2021 and 92.2% in February 2022), nor those who planned/were going to gamble (7.2% in October 2021, 8.2% in February 2022).
That is, Ukrainians remain a non-gambling nation, and opponents of legalization usually exaggerate in the media the problem of gambling addiction among our citizens.
However, we need to track changes, at least to respond in time to the emergence of new trends. That is why we should continue to carry out such studies, making them monitoring and regular.