In an effort to earn more revenues, the government of the Ukraine is reportedly preparing to offer legal gambling activities, based on information included in a letter published by the Ministry of Finance.
A letter was sent by the Ukraine Ministry of Finance to the International Monetary Fund head, Christine Lagarde, which detailed the plans of the government to qualify for financial assistance of $17.5 billion. Just last week, the country received the first installment of assistance in the amount of $1 billion but after reviewing the condition of the country’s economy, the IMF warned that it “must break the legacy of weak governance and stop-and-go reforms” in order to generate sustainable growth.
The letter was signed by several individuals including the president of the Ukraine, the prime minister, finance minister and the national bank president. The details of the letter suggested that the government is ready to go ahead with plans to legalize gambling in the country with the activities able to provide additional revenue to the budget no later than next year.
Draft legislation was actually introduced in the Ukraine in 2015 that would have seen land-based casinos created along with sports betting and a new national lottery. Even online gambling was in the mix. The next year, the government reported that the country should be able to generate around $1.5 billion a year but operators did not agree with the licensing fees and tax rates so the legislation was a flop.
The Ukrainian Gaming Industry Association was created late last year and consists of individuals who are local industry stakeholders in an effort to help the government create legislation that would consider the standards and practices used internationally.
Aleksandr Danilyuk is the Finance Minister of the Ukraine who stated back in February the government intended to bring gambling to fruition. The government actually feels the country missed out on as much as $370 million in revenues that would have been paid in gambling taxes within the past two years if there had not been a delay in allowing gambling to take place.
However, it is not yet clear as to what forms of gambling Ukraine plans to legalise by 2018. Meanwhile, plans for transforming Ukraine’s annexed Crimea peninsular into a ‘gambling zone’ for Russia are moving forward. Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov told the Tass news agency that the zone is designed to avoid international economic sanctions imposed on Russia after it seized control of the territory.“There are certain arrangements that will make it possible [for investors] to bypass the sanctions,” Aksyonov said. “I will keep quiet about such secrets for now; nobody will agree to invest in this project if there were doubts this plan might not work.”
