Ukraine’s gambling regulator, PlayCity, has issued 10 B2B licenses to software providers for the gambling companies, while revoking licenses of seven companies in the same stride, as the watchdog seeks to strengthen local safeguards and ensure that the licensed market continues to thrive.
PlayCity Continues to Reform the Gambling Industry
In a recent interview with Interfax-Ukraine, a local media outlet, PlayCity head Hennadiy Novikov said that the regulator has been actively reviewing license applications and going through the list of existing companies, seeking to ensure compliance with the country’s gambling framework.
Novikov added that oversight will play an increasingly important role in how PlayCity approaches the regulated market, ensuring that there is firm control over the market, and dispelling qualms that operators tied to Russia may be preying on the country’s vulnerable players.
Novikov has outlined further plans to strengthen the country’s resilience to bad actors as well as ensure that Ukraine’s refreshed gambling regulation delivers on the expected results.
“This approach is driven by the high risks inherent in the sector, including the possibility of tax optimization and capital outflows. The regulator seeks to see not individual elements, but the entire ecosystem of the market, ensuring transparency across the supply chain, from software to service providers,” Novikov told the media outlet.
One of PlayCity’s most aggressive moves against a domestic market was a license revocation against PIN-UP, a respected gambling firm operating systems and processes for the industry at scale.
At the time, the regulator alleged ties to Russia, which is a cardinal sin in Ukraine, as the country has been fending off a full-scale invasion from its belligerent neighbor since February 2022, while also fighting a war in the Donbas region since 2014.
