On February 2nd, the Regulation Commission of Gambling and Lotteries issued its first gambling license, and one week later issued two more, opening the door for the online operators in the Ukrainian gaming market.
Even if the land-based business is not fully operational, starting on the same day, the Commission has issued 6 permits for hotels that are ready to place and start as gambling establishments. These permits are required to be submitted in the package of documents for licenses for any land-based type of gambling. We can expect the filing of documents for obtaining a license for a land-based casino and slot machine halls.
The Gambling Law provides for 11 gambling licenses, which can be divided in the following groups:
- Seven “primary” licenses for:
- Land-based casinos (ordinary license and special “investment license”).
- Land-based slot machine halls – each license allows the operation of up to 250 slots
- Land-based and online betting.
- Land-based hippodrome pool betting – the license permits the operation of one betting shop and the carrying out of pool betting on races taking place in such hippodrome.
- Online casino gambling.
- Online poker.
- Three “secondary” licenses for:
- A gaming table or a roulette gaming table.
- A slot machine.
- A betting shop.
These licenses can be obtained by the respective land-based operator with a primary license. For example, a casino will be required to have licenses for tables and slot machines, a slot machine hall will require to have licenses for slot machines, and a betting operator or hippodrome will require licenses for betting shops.
To start a land-based business, the following 2 decisions must be adopted:
- The Commission needs to decide on the list of gaming equipment that requires certification. Considering that the decision was already adopted by the Commission on February 05th, however, it had not come yet into force. According to the document, the following gaming equipment is subject to certification: 1) slot machines; 2) gaming tables, including roulette 3) organizer’s online system of gambling 4) shuffle machines.
- The second decision is to approve the list of companies or entities that are legally allowed to certify the gaming equipment.
Once the two documents are adopted, the casino and slots operators will have the legal tools to obtain the gambling license for their equipment and launch the land-based gaming business.
Szilaghi Consulting offers consultancy services and complete package solutions for gambling license acquisition that include:
- Gambling jurisdiction and business advisory
- Gambling business corporate structure incorporation
- Opening bank accounts
- Gambling license application
