Ukraine Adopts National Gambling-Addiction Strategy Through 2035

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Altay Celikkaya

Content Manager

Updated: 31/08/26

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers has approved the country’s first national strategy for preventing and addressing gambling addiction, setting policy through 2035. The measure was formalised under Order No. 855-r on 26 August 2026. According to the official government announcement, the strategy combines public-health intervention, social support and enforcement against the illegal gambling market.

The operational plan for 2027–2029 provides an initial implementation timetable for the programme. It also reflects wartime risks affecting military personnel, veterans and their families.

Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine logo displayed on an Ace Alliance blue and mint wave background

Regulation & Compliance

Key Takeaways From Ukraine’s National Gambling Strategy Through 2035

Ukraine has adopted a national policy direction through 2035 rather than a short-term awareness campaign.
The initial 2027–2029 plan assigns responsibilities, deadlines and reporting duties across government.
Prevention, treatment and support for vulnerable groups will operate alongside action against the illegal market.
The decision does not by itself impose a complete set of immediately enforceable new operator requirements.

One Plan Brings Together Around 40 Public Bodies

The strategy replaces fragmented initiatives with a cross-government structure involving approximately 40 authorities and public institutions. Participants include the ministries responsible for digital transformation, health, education, defence, veterans and social policy, alongside the National Police, Security Service, Bureau of Economic Security and gambling regulator PlayCity.

Each participating body will deliver tasks within its legal remit and available budget. Agencies must provide annual implementation information to the Ministry of Digital Transformation by 1 March. From 2028, the ministry must submit consolidated progress reports to the Cabinet by 1 April each year.

The current plan covers 2027–2029. Further operational plans for 2030–2032 and 2033–2035 are scheduled to be submitted before the preceding implementation periods expire, creating a staged governance model with recurring accountability.

Prevention and Treatment Move Alongside Enforcement

The public-health programme includes national awareness campaigns, gambling-risk education in schools and routine screening designed to identify harmful behaviour earlier. It also aims to expand access to psychological care, treatment, rehabilitation and social support for affected individuals and their families.

Explaining the need for broader government action, Nataliia Denikeieva, Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation, said,

For a long time, gambling addiction was seen as a personal problem. But its consequences are much broader, including wartime risks to national security.

This wartime dimension is reflected in dedicated prevention and rehabilitation programmes for military personnel and veterans. The measures build on Ukraine’s gambling restrictions for military personnel, which introduced a targeted exclusion mechanism for service members during martial law.

For operators, the strategy signals that player monitoring, self-restriction and intervention processes are likely to become increasingly important in compliance planning, even though it does not yet establish detailed technical standards.

Illegal-Market Controls Form Part of Harm Reduction

Ukraine will combine health measures with systematic blocking of illegal gambling websites and unlawful advertising, as well as stronger action against gambling-related crime. This links consumer protection with channelisation, recognising that unlicensed platforms may bypass identity checks, limits and exclusion controls.

The enforcement backdrop was already visible in PlayCity’s April enforcement data, which reported 242 blocked domains and 15,000 new entries in the register of people with restricted access to gambling, 90% of them self-exclusions.

Strategy Adoption Is Not an Immediate Operator Rulebook

Order No. 855-r approves a strategic framework and its first operational plan. It should not be read as a fully effective package of new licence conditions, technical integrations or sanctions taking immediate effect for every operator.

Specific business requirements will require separate legislation, regulatory acts, implementation instructions or enforcement decisions. Operators and suppliers should therefore monitor PlayCity and the Ministry of Digital Transformation for measures that translate the strategy into auditable controls.

Ukraine’s approach can be compared with Norway’s 2026–2029 gambling harm strategy, which similarly combines prevention, early detection, treatment and research. Ukraine’s model is distinguished by its wartime security context and the explicit integration of illegal-market enforcement into a national harm-reduction framework.