The volume of the illegal gambling market in Ukraine is significantly increasing, seriously impacting the positions of legal operators. According to the latest research results from the international company Kantar, the share of the shadow segment in the structure of the gambling business has risen from 52.1% to 56.7%. In financial terms, this amounts to at least 61.6 billion UAH.
This is reported by Finway
“If the legal market continues to be ‘squeezed’ under the guise of combating gambling addiction, the reformatting of the market in favor of illegal operators will only accelerate. The state will lose tax revenues,” warns Kogut.
Mass migration of players to illegal platforms
According to information from the president of the Association of Ukrainian Gambling Business Operators (AUOGB), Oleksandr Kogut, over 80.6% of surveyed players preferred betting at illegal online casinos in the last three months. Additionally, half of the thirty most well-known gambling brands in Ukraine operate in the shadow segment.
Reasons for the popularity of illegal gambling
Survey results among 2,500 respondents show that the key factors for choosing illegal casinos are:
- fast payouts – 49% of respondents;
- absence of gaming restrictions – 44%;
- attractive bonus programs – 37%;
- ability to avoid tax payments – 25%;
- ease of registration – 18%;
- transactions in cryptocurrencies – 6%.
According to AUOGB, the growth of the shadow sector is caused by ineffective methods of blocking illegal sites, the ongoing activities of banking “quasi-processing” for such platforms, and excessive administrative pressure on the legal business. In particular, blocking one illegal online casino takes at least 10 days, while creating a new clone site takes only 1-2 days.
Financial losses to the state budget
The Association predicts that by the end of the first quarter of 2026, the revenue of legal operators may decrease by 10-15%, which will directly affect the reduction of tax revenues.
In 2025, the legal gambling industry in Ukraine paid 17.4 billion UAH in taxes to the budget. At the same time, in April, fines totaling 946 million UAH were imposed on gambling organizers, including the agency PlayCity.