President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky put into effect the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to counter the negative consequences of gambling on the Internet. The corresponding decree No. 234/2024 was published on the website of the Office of the President.
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During the month the Cabinet of Ministers has:
- develop a procedure for limiting all forms of gambling advertising, including the use of electronic communications, symbols of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations; prohibit the registration of multiple accounts for one player, and also determine the time limit in the game per week; oblige the gambling organizer to set a limit for the player before starting the game with the possibility of changing such a limit no more than once a month; introduce a government online monitoring system; conduct a national awareness-raising campaign on the dangers of gambling, blocking illegal sites that provide access to gambling.
According to the decision of the National Security and Defense Council, the military leadership will immediately ban military personnel from accessing gambling establishments and online casinos for the period of martial law.
At the same time, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Policy must, within three months, develop, respectively, a clinical standard for the treatment of gambling addiction and socio-psychological rehabilitation of persons with gambling addiction.
NBU recommended:
1 . introduce within two weeks a ban on accepting dual-use goods as collateral;
2. approve within two months methodological recommendations for:
- banks issuing payment cards regarding compliance with the requirements of the Law of Ukraine “On Preventing and Combating the Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime, the Financing of Terrorism and the Financing of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction” in terms of P2P transfers; banks to block citizens' payments with credit funds to the accounts of gambling organizers for participation in gambling on the Internet.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation must, within a month, hold negotiations with Apple and Google regarding the ban on the placement of mobile applications with gambling without an appropriate license in the “UA” zone in their application stores.
The security service will within two months conduct inspections of gambling organizers regarding compliance with the sanctions legislation of Ukraine.
The problem of online casinos
Recently, the topic of online casinos has become a resonant topic in Ukraine. A petition to limit gambling on the Internet has appeared on the website of the Office of the President.
In particular, the author of the petition, a serviceman of the 59th separate motorized infantry brigade and activist Pavel Petrichenko, called for restricting access to casinos for the military.
According to him, the gambling business deliberately directs its advertising to military personnel, using the symbols of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in its online -casino.
“For the third year now, military personnel have been far from their families, in stressful conditions and without the opportunity for proper rest, so they are especially psychologically vulnerable. For many of them, gambling becomes the only way to cope with stress, so it quickly causes dopamine addiction and weakens their self-control,” he noted in the petition.
According to him, there are frequent cases when gambling addicted military personnel spend on games, take out all their financial support and take out microloans, thereby putting themselves and their families into a “debt hole,” or they sell drones and thermal imagers to pawnshops, harming not only themselves, but also their fellow brothers.
It should be noted that that Pavel Petrichenko died defending Ukraine. Farewell to him took place yesterday, April 19, in St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral in Kyiv.