A court overturned a nearly 5-million fine imposed on blogger Anna Alhim for advertising a casino
The Dnipropetrovsk District Administrative Court overturned a 4.8 million hryvnia fine that the state regulator “PlayCity” had imposed on blogger Anna Alhim for allegedly advertising gambling illegally on Instagram.
The court took into account the findings of a linguistic analysis, which concluded that the blogger’s posts were personal expressions and did not contain calls to register, play at a casino, or deposit funds. The defense also argued that there is no evidence of Alkhim’s collaboration with the casino or that she received compensation for mentioning it.
In addition, the lawyers pointed out that the Economic Security Bureau had not confirmed that the Instagram account officially belonged to the blogger, nor had it ruled out the possibility of deepfake technology being used.
PlayCity has already announced that it will appeal the court’s decision.
Ukrainian blogger Anna Alkhim was fined ₴67.2 million for posting illegal casino advertisements on social media and on her own websites.
As a reminder, over the past six months, PlayCity has fined 14 bloggers, websites, and media outlets a total of 67.2 million hryvnias for illegal gambling advertisements. During monitoring, content was identified that violated the rules—ranging from “gaming interfaces” to disguised advertising.
