Ukraine’s gambling regulator PlayCity has launched the pilot phase of its State Online Monitoring System, known as DSOM, connecting 11 licensed operators to a centralised transaction-monitoring platform designed to give the state near-real-time visibility of the regulated gambling market.
The launch marks a significant step in Ukraine’s post-KRAIL regulatory rebuild, though it arrives against a backdrop of contested governance, budget scrutiny, and an active dispute in the Verkhovna Rada over who should control the country’s gambling policy.
What DSOM Does
DSOM is a centralised infrastructure that captures every bet, payout, return, and balance transaction from connected operators as a discrete, tamper-resistant record. Each operation is assigned a unique identifier and, once transmitted, cannot be overwritten or edited. The system is designed to handle up to 10,000 transactions per second, with capacity to scale.
The architecture is split into two interfaces. The internal interface is accessible only to state regulatory agencies. The external interface is a dedicated portal for licensed gambling operators to manage their accounts, equipment registries, and API connection keys, with access granted via a Qualified Electronic Signature.
The State Tax Service of Ukraine has been given direct access to primary transaction data for the automated calculation of gross gaming revenue, player winnings tax, personal income tax, and the military levy — the latter being a wartime fiscal obligation applying across the Ukrainian economy.
Privacy protections are built into the system’s design. DSOM records in-game transactions but does not collect players’ personal data. All data passed to the State Tax Service is transmitted in anonymised format, and the system has no mechanism to track a player’s financial activity outside the gambling environment.
Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Oleksandr Bornyakov stated that the launch means the state is, for the first time, seeing a real picture of market activity without delays or retrospective reporting.
The Operator Onboarding Process
The current phase is a voluntary sandbox. Operators already connected are using test data to configure their transaction transmission and resolve technical issues before mandatory integration applies across the market. The connection process is staged to allow PlayCity to test the system under real operating conditions before scaling.
New operators will be registered into the system within one business day of paying their licence fee, after which they receive access to their external workspace. From that point, information exchange between the operator and the regulator occurs automatically via the encrypted API.
PlayCity Secretary General Hennadiy Novikov told lawmakers and tax officials during a demonstration of the system:
“This will ensure effective control over operators, reducing unfair practices and strengthening the rights of players.”
The Governance Dispute Operators Cannot Ignore
The more significant near-term risk for operators is not technical — it is political.
A structural amendment to bill No. 15111-d, currently before the Verkhovna Rada ahead of its second reading, would strip gambling policy authority from the Ministry of Digital Transformation and transfer it to the Ministry of Finance. The bill itself is a fiscal compliance measure aligned with Ukraine’s $8.1bn Extended Fund Facility with the International Monetary Fund and EU DAC7 standards. The gambling governance clause was inserted as one of 3,529 amendments proposed ahead of the second reading. The Verkhovna Rada passed the bill in its first reading in April 2026 with 234 votes.
The driving force behind the transfer proposal is MP Danylo Hetmantsev, chair of the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee on Finance, Tax, and Customs Policy, who has been a persistent critic of PlayCity’s handling of gambling regulation and initiated a criminal case against the regulator over a lottery licensing tender in February 2026.
Mykhailo Aksyonov, deputy head of PlayCity’s Anti-Corruption Expert Group, warned of the timeline consequences directly:
“If we start moving policy-making from the Ministry of Digital Transformation to the Ministry of Finance, while simultaneously creating a new body to regulate this sphere, the launch of the State Online Monitoring System could be delayed by at least a year.”
Whether the amendment passes will determine not just who governs the sector, but whether DSOM’s current technical momentum survives a mid-rollout institutional handover. A Finance Ministry mandate would shift priorities toward revenue enforcement rather than the Digital Ministry’s approach of building compliance infrastructure in parallel with market development. For operators planning integration timelines, or considering entry into the Ukrainian market, that distinction is material. Ukraine’s situation mirrors a broader European pattern in which regulatory credibility is tested precisely when enforcement tools are being built.
Context: From KRAIL to PlayCity
Ukraine legalised gambling in 2020. Its original regulator, the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (KRAIL), was dissolved in April 2024 following corruption scandals and allegations of Russian influence in the licensing process. PlayCity was subsequently established under the Ministry of Digital Transformation and began operations in April 2025 under the supervision of Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
The National Bank of Ukraine has previously estimated that Ukrainian citizens spend nearly UAH 400m (approximately €8m) daily on online platforms. Illegal gambling is estimated to account for over 50% of total market activity — the core problem DSOM is designed to address through verifiable transaction reporting and credible GGR calculation. With Europe’s gross gambling revenue reaching €123.4bn in 2024, Ukraine’s share remains constrained by the unresolved split between its regulated and shadow markets.
Full implementation of the second DSOM phase, which will include broader analytical functions and recording of specific game results, is targeted for October 2026. Whether that timeline holds will depend on the outcome of the Verkhovna Rada amendment process.
Source: PlayCity
