At the beginning of the new year, it is traditional to summarise the results of the past and make predictions for the future. For the domestic gambling market, 2024 was quite a challenging year, so its results should be considered in layers. Let's start with the positive.
Despite the fact that the final annual statistics will be available a little later, we can already say that the gambling business has exceeded the targets set in the state budget for 2024 both in terms of licence fee revenues and taxes.
In particular, according to the budget schedule for 2024, the government expected to receive UAH 1 billion 47.5 million in licence fees from gambling companies, and as of the first half of December, the state budget has already received UAH 1 billion 676.8 million in this regard.
In terms of taxation, the situation is even more impressive: in total, the gambling business paid UAH 16 billion in taxes in 11 months of 2024. It is clear that, taking into account December revenues, the difference in favour of the previous year compared to the year before will be greater.
As for its individual segments, there are no surprises there either: while the war is on, the situation for offline venues remains quite difficult. Online gambling, on the other hand, is showing steady growth, particularly in the casino and sports betting segments. This is due to the relatively stable functioning of the infrastructure (despite regular power outages, to which a large part of the online business is gradually adapting) and an increase in the number of licensees.
Regarding the situation with changes in regulatory policy, the prolonged ban on advertising of legal gambling organisers from May to December 2024 contributed to the active development of the shadow sector and significantly limited the opportunities of the legal market. If not for this ban, the development of legal online gambling would have been more intensive.
It is also worth mentioning that only those companies that operate in the white market adhere to the principles of responsible gambling and implement measures aimed at preventing gambling addiction among players. Therefore, the negative consequences of the growth of the black gambling market include not only a shortfall in budget revenues but also the risk of increasing the number of gambling addicts. However, regular research in this area is required to draw definitive conclusions.
In 2024, efforts to improve the regulatory framework continued, but it is difficult to predict the consequences of this process, primarily because there are already legislative grounds for replacing the current national regulator with a new, not yet established institution. As of today, we have:
- the issue of regulating advertising activities in the white gambling market is about half resolved;
- there is still no state online monitoring system, which continues to create difficulties in the field of gambling fiscalisation, in particular, in terms of a fair, unified and transparent system of accounting for tax payments by all business entities;
- outdated and ambiguous legal terminology, which complicates reporting in the gambling sector;
- a somewhat inconsistent fight against illegal operators.
In 2025, we expect the gambling market to continue growing, primarily online, as more people switch to online gambling formats. At the same time, the use of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, will become more widespread to improve the security and transparency of gambling services. Expenditures on marketing will increase to attract new customers, especially in the context of increased competition due to difficulties in the state's regulatory policy on gambling advertising.
In general, the Ukrainian gambling market has positive prospects, but the results of its work in the new year will depend on how the industry will be able to cope with the challenges posed by the war, as well as those related primarily to regulatory policy and the results of the fight against the black market, whose activities negatively affect both white businesses and state and local budget revenues.
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