"PlayCity has blocked more than 2.5 thousand illegal online casinos in a year
The state agency PlayCity blocked more than 2.5 thousand illegal online casino sites in 2025. This was announced on 10 January by First Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation Mikhail Fedorov.
According to him, the agency has managed to achieve tangible results in a year of work. These include blocking more than 2,500 illegal resources, imposing fines of more than UAH 67 million, and ensuring revenues to the state budget of more than UAH 1.7 billion. These funds were generated by licence fees from legal gambling businesses.
The PlayCity Agency was launched in early June 2025 under the coordination of the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine. Its key goal is to reform the gambling market, increase the transparency of its work and create responsible rules for business while increasing budget revenues.
Fedorov noted that the agency's activities are supervised by an independent Anti-Corruption Expert Group. Its members were elected by citizens through open voting, which is an additional guarantee of transparency and trust in the process. The Tracking System has already been launched, which has helped to identify and block thousands of illegal online casinos.
A separate area of work is the development of the State Online Monitoring System. The platform should provide the state with a complete picture of the legal gambling market in real time, including financial flows and taxation. In addition, in 2025, for the first time in more than a decade, the state regained control over the lottery market, which also had a positive impact on budget revenues.
Illustrations: Mikhail Fedorov.
