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Ukraine’s new gambling and lottery regulator, PlayCity, plans to roll out an updated national register of individuals barred from gambling in January 2026, positioning the system as a practical enforcement tool for licensed operators rather than a symbolic responsible-gambling measure.
Hennadiy Novikov, head of the State Agency for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (PlayCity), said the current register contains around 12,000 people and that the upgraded version is now in final acceptance testing.
“We are currently accepting the completed work… we plan to launch the updated register in January,” Novikov told Interfax-Ukraine, adding that the agency expects the new build to be “user-friendly” and actively used by organisers.
“Do not gamble” list will be limited to gambling organisers and other bodies
At a basic level, the registry is a national “do-not-gamble” list. It covers individuals who have voluntarily restricted their participation, those restricted by court decision, and cases initiated at the request of close relatives, according to Novikov.
Crucially for operators, the register will not be publicly accessible. Novikov said it contains personal data and access will be limited to gambling organisers, who are obligated to prevent listed individuals from participating.
For B2C licensees, that design will shift the register to more of an operational control point. It will become something platforms must integrate into onboarding, wallet funding, and session controls, with audit trails strong enough to withstand inspection.
The next operational hurdle: application flow and public awareness
After shipping the register itself, PlayCity is already preparing for the next phase: adoption and scale. Novikov said the agency’s “next task” is to create a convenient way for applications to be submitted and to actively inform citizens that the register exists and can be used.
That is a meaningful signal to the market. A register only reduces harm if enrollment is frictionless, the public knows it exists, and organisers are technically and procedurally capable of blocking access in real time.
This push will fit into PlayCity’s wider regulatory reset
Since its inception, PlayCity has continued to build out a more digital-first oversight model within Ukraine’s broader state approach to modernising gambling supervision.
Government communications around the new framework have emphasised tighter control mechanisms and a push toward technology-led enforcement, an approach that aligns closely with a centralised exclusion tool that operators must use at the point of service.
For operators and platform vendors, the January 2026 target creates a near-term delivery window for integrations, policy updates, staff training, and customer support scripts, especially around edge cases such as court-ordered restrictions, removals after eligibility periods, and disputes over account access.
The bigger commercial question is enforcement consistency. If PlayCity pairs a “usable” register with inspections and penalties for non-compliance, the register stops being an RG checkbox and becomes a licensing hygiene requirement, affecting everything from KYC design to payment logic and marketing suppression rules.
If the rollout works as intended, the system could become one of the most visible early tests of whether Ukraine’s post-restructure regulator can translate policy intent into tools that operators actually deploy, and that meaningfully change consumer outcomes.
Source: Interfax
