"Servants of the People" are concerned that legal gambling business is still in little demand in Ukraine

Author

Valery Moiseev

Today, on December 13, the faction Servant of the People will address the issue of amendments to the laws on taxation of activities related to organizing and conducting gambling and lotteries (bill No. 2713-d). This project is planned to be passed in the last plenary week of this year that will begin on December 14th.

What is proposed to amend in gambling business taxation

Just a year and a half ago, on July 14, 2020, the Verkhovna Rada of the current convocation adopted a law on state regulation of gambling. And now the MPs believe that it is necessary to radically change the approach to the gambling business taxation.

"The EU countries use a fairly simple approach. "Expensive" licenses—low taxes, or "cheap" licenses and high taxes, but both "expensive" licenses and high taxes is nonsense," the explanatory note to the bill adopted in the first reading in July this year reads.

It is proposed to impose a single tax rate on income (gross gaming income) obtained from organizing and conducting gambling, issuing and conducting lotteries—10%.

In addition to income tax, business entities will also pay income tax at a general rate of 18%.

The personal income tax and military duty are paid from big winnings (more than 8 minimum wages, at the moment it is 52,000 UAH). One has to pay taxes on all winnings currently. When taxing gambling winnings, the costs of participation in such a game, made within 24 hours before the winnings, will be taken into account.

It is proposed to abolish the triple payment for licenses for betting activities, for organizing and conducting casino gambling on the Internet, as well as for a slot machine.

Other changes have also been proposed, in particular, it is planned to revise the maximum amount of cash settlements with individuals for land-based casinos.

What legal gambling business looks like in Ukraine now

As of November 2021, the state got 1.34 billion UAH from the sale of gambling licenses. This is only 18% of the planned income of 7.4 billion UAH. Such data is provided by the resource Opendatabot.

The Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (KRAIL) began issuing licenses in February 2021. As of November, most of the income was obtained from the sale of licenses for organizing gambling in casinos (360 million UAH) and on the Internet (304 million UAH), as well as from installing slot machines (309 million UAH).

There are 28 registered gambling organizers in Ukraine. The largest area of slot-machine parlors and casinos is occupied by companies operating under the brands First, Win, and FAVBET.

Kyiv is the leader in the number of gambling establishments among the cities of Ukraine—10 slot machine parlors and 4 casinos. Next come Lviv with 6 slot machine parlors and 1 casino and Kharkiv with 5 slot machine parlors and 1 casino. There are 4 slot machine parlors and 1 casino in Odesa.

Next year, the state hopes to get 7.6 billion UAH from gambling licenses—this amount is included in the state budget.

Note that the website Opendatabot contains a register with information about the companies that have the right to organize gambling in Ukraine. Its data is constantly updated.