The gambling market returned to Ukraine’s legal field with the establishment of several regulatory restrictions and obligations, the implementation of which was entrusted to both state bodies and commercial companies with gambling licenses.
One of these obligations was the introduction of the State Online Monitoring System (DSOM), a specialized hardware and software system designed to:
· ensure monitoring of gambling operators’ economic activities;
· ensure compliance with license terms and technical standards;
· receive or transmit information in real time from (to) the relevant gaming equipment via the Internet or other communication channels, as well as collect, process, accumulate and register data on accepted bets, paid winnings (prizes), payouts, and other operations related to organizing and conducting gambling, ensuring the protection of information from loss, theft, distortion, forgery, unauthorized actions aimed at its destruction, modification, copying, etc., and from unauthorized online access.
DSOM was also supposed to guarantee compliance with responsible gambling principles by legal gambling operators.
The draft decision of the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (CRGL) “On Approving the Requirements for the State Online Monitoring System” was prepared and published in December 2021. However, due to russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine that began in February 2022, this draft decision failed to go through all the procedures last year and become a full-fledged regulatory act. Despite the ongoing war, legal gambling continues to operate and provides revenue to the state budget. It means that improving the quality of its activities is a universal need, which is why the need to implement the DSOM system is only increasing. We hope that it will happen soon because a full-fledged State Online Monitoring System means:
· growth of foreign investors’ confidence in the Ukrainian jurisdiction;
· a “life belt” saving the legal business from subjective pressure from all sorts of “problem solvers” “representing” tax authorities and other government agencies;
· better protection of gamblers using the services of legal gambling operators (DSOM is an effective additional mechanism for restricting the access of gambling addicts to the game);
· transparency of financial transactions, allowing the State to see the real amounts of money entering gambling establishments or online platforms and funds paid as winnings or advertising bonuses;
· civilized process of tax calculation for legal business.
Let me remind you that DSOM is CRGL’s key tool to perform the function of state supervision (control) over activities in the field of organizing and conducting gambling. That is why, on its part, we can only expect assistance in its early implementation.
Comments