Economy

No fines for casino advertising have been paid yet: the debt amounts to almost UAH 5 million

The first proceedings for unpaid fines for illegal advertising of online casinos have appeared in the Unified Register of Debtors. Despite the imposition of multi-million dollar sanctions, as of January 2026, none of the violators had paid the fines.

This was reported by the state register monitoring service OpenDataBot, citing data from the State Agency for the Control of Gambling and Lottery Business of Ukraine PlayCity, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".

In total, 13 bloggers and one Telegram channel received fines for promoting gambling on the Internet. Some of the sanctions have already been transferred for enforcement, while others are being appealed in court or are within the deadline for voluntary payment.

The first open enforcement proceedings concern blogger Karina Kuchmenko (Simbochka). In total, two debts are recorded in the register — 4.8 million hryvnia and 24,000 hryvnia.

Previously, records of fines were also made against two other individuals — Diana Movsesyan and Maxim Lavrinenko (Telegram channel “Truha”), but in these cases, the proceedings were refused for procedural reasons, in particular due to document requirements and court appeals.

According to PlayCity:

• 8 cases (57%) are under judicial appeal,
• 5 (36%) are still within the voluntary payment period,
• 1 (7%) has been transferred for enforcement.

The agency reminds that the law allows up to three months for voluntary payment of the fine after the decision is made.

“We are consistently developing the practice of bringing to justice those responsible for illegal advertising of gambling and will continue to respond to all identified violations within the limits of our authority,” said PlayCity Chairman Gennady Novikov.

Last year, the agency stepped up its checks on gambling advertising due to non-compliance with the requirements of the laws “On Advertising” and “On State Regulation of Activities Related to the Organization and Conduct of Gambling,” which establish both restrictions on casino promotion and the size of financial penalties.

As reported by [Komersant], earlier, the head of the Verkhovna Rada’s tax committee, Danylo Getmantsev, criticized the work of the PlayCity agency. In particular, he noted that PlayCity, like other law enforcement agencies involved in the fight against gambling, has sufficient powers, but their work is disappointing.

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