Gambling Business Under the Hood: Ukraine Launches State Monitoring System – What Changes for Players and Casinos

Yesterday in Kyiv, at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Digital Transformation, they finally unveiled the long-awaited DSOM. The State System of Online Monitoring for the gambling business. The one they’d been talking about for five years. And it works.

Now there are no loopholes. Every bet, every refund, every payout – everything is recorded. Nothing can be lost, “forgotten,” or backdated. Technically impossible. That’s what smart IT people have built.

For international investors and Western operators eyeing the Ukrainian market – from London to Las Vegas – this means one thing: Ukraine is no longer a grey zone. It’s building a transparent, EU-style regulatory framework.

What does this mean for businesses, tax authorities, and the average player who sometimes throws a hundred on a football match? Let’s break it down.

How the system works

DSOM consists of two parts. The internal part is accessible to government agencies: the regulator PlayCity and the State Tax Service. The external part is for gambling organizers, who connect their systems via API. Details are available on the regulator’s official website.

PlayCity head Gennadiy Novikov personally demonstrated the system to lawmakers and tax officials.

“This is a fully functional tool,”

he wrote on his Facebook. Dashboards are open. Everything runs in real time.

What exactly can DSOM do:

• See all of an operator’s operational activity;
• Record every bet, refund, and payout;
• Make it impossible to alter a single transmitted byte;
• Give tax authorities direct access to transactions for calculating GGR (Gross Gaming Revenue), military tax, and personal income tax.

At the same time, the system does not monitor user behavior. Only already placed bets. So don’t panic just yet.

Liga.net reports that by its architecture, DSOM is one of the most technologically complex state IT solutions of its kind in Europe. The system is designed for 10,000 transactions per second. Currently, according to the online publication, the first five operators have already connected. The rest are in the process. The mode is test-based, but the data is real.

What’s next?

The meeting also discussed the second phase of DSOM. It will include expanded analytical functionality. And – pay attention – deep integration into individual game processes. That means not just “bet size,” but the full picture – which slot, how many spins, what dynamics. Surgical precision.

Why this matters

Before DSOM, the tax service calculated gambling taxes… well, roughly. Whatever numbers came out. Now – exact figures for every transaction. Going into the shadows won’t work.

For legal operators, this is a plus. Fair competition without dumping fueled by tax evasion. For those used to backroom deals – a major downside.

And for the state – finally, transparent money in the budget. Military tax and personal income tax on every win. In wartime conditions, that’s no small thing.

Five years of waiting. Not in vain. Though honestly, sometimes people gave up hope. Thought it was another soap bubble. But this time, it looks serious. A working system is the best answer to skeptics.

Let’s see how the second phase and system loads play out. But the first step has been taken. And it’s a confident one.