The organizers of an underground casino were sentenced in Kyiv
A court in the capital has handed down a verdict against the organizers of an illegal gambling operation who were operating without the proper license. Following the prosecution’s case, the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office found three individuals—a Kyiv resident and two of his accomplices—guilty of organizing and conducting gambling activities.
This was reported by the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office.
The investigation established that the perpetrators had set up a poker room in downtown Kyiv. The underground establishment operated from 2023 to 2024 and welcomed visitors on a regular basis.
During the trial, prosecutors presented compelling evidence confirming the guilt of all three defendants. As a result, the court found them guilty of committing a criminal offense under Part 3 of Article 28 and Part 2 of Article 203-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The organizer of the illegal business must pay a fine of 799,000 hryvnias, while his two accomplices must each pay 765,000 hryvnias.
In addition, pursuant to the court’s decision, over $20,000 obtained through illegal activities was confiscated and forfeited to the state.
The pre-trial investigation in the case was conducted by detectives from the Territorial Office of the Economic Security Bureau in Kyiv.
As a reminder, the regulator PlayCity decided to revoke the license of the online casino Cosmolot due to the use of P2P payments, which violates the requirements of gambling legislation.
As a reminder, a year ago, a law came into force in Ukraine that launched the reform of the gambling and lottery market. The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine took charge of coordinating the changes, and the state agency PlayCity was established to implement the reform. The agency has now summarized the first results of its work one year after the reform’s launch.
The documents are currently under public review. We expect the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to consider them this year.
PlayCity has issued a license to the Ukrainian National Lottery.
In 2025, PlayCity blocked over 2,500 illegal online casinos, according to Fedorov.
Here’s a reminder of when online monitoring of the gambling industry will launch in Ukraine and how it will work.
Until then, the market will continue to operate under the old schemes, where payouts are widely disguised as “deposit refunds,” the TSK reported.
