Draft Law 9256-d was adopted. Undoubtedly, some provisions of this law are somewhat optimistic, in particular those aimed at limiting the activities of illegal operators and strengthening the regulation of lotteries. However, it seems that all these restrictions and innovations exist only on paper. We will have to wait for the real results.
After voting for 9256-d, some MPs immediately began to claim that it would regulate the situation with lotteries by tightening requirements for their activities. In particular, they believe that positive regulatory restrictions on lotteries include the following:
control over the "integrity" of lottery operators - tax debt, ties with russia as an aggressor country, the requirement to conduct transactions exclusively through official bank accounts, etc;
licences to conduct state lotteries are allowed to be obtained by foreign entities, provided they have relevant experience, which, according to MPs, should increase competition in the lottery market and attract foreign investors.
When reading these provisions, it seems that the lottery market will finally start working "transparently". However, if you analyse it a bit, you will start to see questions that have no clear answers yet.
Firstly, how will foreign entities obtain lottery licences if the mechanism, conditions and rules for their issuance are not established? All state lotteries currently operating in Ukraine have expired licences. I have repeatedly emphasised this.
Secondly, absolutely all lottery operators today imitate gambling and do not have the appropriate gambling licences. Hence the question: how can we force illegal operators operating outside the legal field to conduct all transactions through official bank accounts? Logically, funds from, for example, online slot machine gambling organisations should be transferred to the organiser's bank account under a certain KVED. If the lottery operator does not have a licence, he or she will not be able to accept these funds under this KVED. Then how will all transactions of lottery operators go through their official accounts? By the way, let's not forget that the absence of licences also means that there are no corresponding payments to the state budget.
Thirdly, the law does not recognise lotteries as gambling, which contradicts the practice of developed gambling markets. So, on the one hand, lotteries do not have their own regulatory framework for licensing and taxation, and on the other hand, they are not gambling and, therefore, are not regulated by gambling rules. This leaves lotteries in a comfortable "grey zone" where it is very easy to make money by imitating gambling and more.
Finally, fourthly, what about lottery advertising? The adopted law does not directly extend the prohibitions on gambling advertising to lottery advertising. The latter successfully use it. There is no decrease in lottery advertising, as well as their illegal platforms where they imitate gambling. And I do not see a mechanism that would lead to a reduction in this advertising in the near future.
Thus, although 9256-d affects the regulation of certain aspects of lottery activities, it cannot replace full-fledged regulatory legislation in this area. In order to claim that the situation with lotteries has improved, it is necessary to either equate them to gambling and start applying the relevant provisions, or develop and adopt separate regulatory legislation for them. And it should not be preferential when compared to the regulatory framework for other gambling activities.
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