Legal gambling organizers have adapted to doing business in a time of war. Neither tax uncertainty, nor loss of assets and customers, nor competition from illegal operators, nor constant restrictions and bans have not destroyed the legal gambling market. The most striking example of this is the ability of legal gambling organizers to pay taxes. The amount of taxes paid has grown significantly compared to the previous year and amounted to UAH 9.8 billion in the first 7 months of 2024. Such figures are truly impressive during the war, as they require extraordinary efforts on the part of businesses to achieve them.
Legal gambling has once again proved its viability despite all the challenges it faces. Moreover, it continues to fully fulfill its obligations to the state. The simplest and most understandable indicator that confirms this thesis is the solvency of the legal gambling business. In the first 7 months of 2024, legal organizers paid 2.9 times more taxes than in the same period of 2023. Legal businesses also continue to pay license fees in full.
Interestingly, some government "reformers" trying to take credit for achievements of the gambling are, hinting at the success of the reforms they introduced. These pseudo-de-shadowing market players claim that their initiatives have led to a significant increase in budget revenues and that "gambling has started to come out of the shadows." In general, one could believe this, since we are talking about the head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Tax Policy, Mr. Hetmantsev. However, there are two significant "but" that make us treat these statements with at least skepticism.
1. This committee, as well as politicians and "experts" affiliated with Hetmantsev, have been sabotaging the adoption of the draft law on the gambling business taxation system 2713-d for more than 4 years. If this law had been adopted, there would have been much more tax money in the budget from gambling, as well as legal companies that would have paid these taxes. The lack of full-fledged tax legislation is a negative deterrent that pushes large Western brands away from entering the Ukrainian gambling market.
2. The specialized committee devotes a lot of time to taxation of legal gambling, while completely neglecting the fight against the illegal segment. In addition, some of their initiatives directly contribute to the work of shadow operators, including lotteries. The issues of their taxation and licensing have not yet been settled, and they continue to operate quietly, simulating gambling on their platforms without paying any taxes or license fees.
So, as we can see, for some unknown reason, the focus of the specialized committee is only on legal gambling organizers. The restrictions on the legal market initiated and supported by this committee are presented as "achievements", although in reality they simply complicate the business environment and economic activities of legal companies. Meanwhile, illegal workers continue to work quietly and pay no taxes. The committee pays no attention to them, as if they do not exist for it.
Perhaps it's time to find effective methods to combat illegal operators and force them to fill the state budget? Perhaps it is still worth introducing appropriate licensing and taxation of lotteries? And where is the creation of a PIC to investigate violations in the field of lotteries? How many lotteries have already been prosecuted for imitating gambling without licenses? The illegal segment, which is currently widely represented, in particular by lotteries, is a source of tens of billions of hryvnias that the state budget does not receive due to non-payment of license fees, taxes, and even fines for illegal activities.
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