Business news from Ukraine

UKRAINE’S PARLIAMENT RETURNS GAMBLING BILL FOR REFINING

21 December , 2019  

Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada has returned bill No. 2285-d on the public regulation of activities in the sphere of organization of gambling for refining by the committee and preparing it for repeated first reading. The document was registered in parliament on December 18.
An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that MPs did not support the bill at first reading casting only 213 votes with at least 226 required, while 243 MPs backed the decision to send the document for repeated first reading.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers registered bill No. 2285 in the parliament, and MPs submitted seven more alternative documents, among is finalized bill No. 2285-d, authored by MP Oleksandr Dubinsky (the Servant of the People parliamentary faction).
The bill proposes to limit the number of licenses for gambling establishments. In addition, it is proposed to establish mandatory verification of players when accepting bets and registering winners in the online monitoring system.
At the same time, the government bill proposes to establish special gambling zones for casinos and slot machines: the territory of five-star hotels for casinos and three star and higher rated hotels for slot machines.
The law on the national budget for 2020 provides for revenues from licenses in the field of gambling in the amount of UAH 4.4 billion, which will be sent to the budget’s special fund, and everything that exceeds the amount specified in the law will be spent on subventions to local budgets to finance various educational and healthcare programs.

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