Growth of black IGaming to reduce revenue of legal gambling business in 2025 by UAH 15 bln — association
The total revenue of the Ukrainian IGaming market – online gambling entertainment – amounted to UAH 27.1 billion in the first half of 2025, and at the end of the year the legal gambling industry in Ukraine will receive at least UAH 15 billion less revenue due to the aggressive growth of the black market, said president of the Association of Ukrainian Gambling Operators (AUGO) Oleksandr Kohut during a meeting of the association’s participants.
"The official consolidated financial indicators and assessments of the industry's activities for the first half of 2025, unfortunately, are significantly worse than market participants expected... If the trend continues, the annual figure [of revenue] will be about UAH 54-55 billion. For comparison, in 2024, revenue amounted to UAH 59.6 billion," Kohut said in an AUGO press release on Thursday.
He emphasized that the rapid growth observed in the previous two years has stopped.
"The main reason is the activation of the illegal segment. ‘Illegals’ continue to use drops, P2P schemes, do not pay taxes and are not limited in advertising," the head of the association noted.
According to the release, according to preliminary estimates of Internet traffic, about 20,000-25,000 d Ukrainians switch from legal online casinos to illegal ones every quarter.
The AUGO President also recalled that the new regulator — the Ukraine's State Agency PlayCity — has already resumed the process of closing illegal casinos and blocked more than 1,300 sites.
"We work with them together, we work with regulators and law enforcement officers. This work is just beginning, there have already been three waves of closures, where the Association took an active part. At the same time, we see that about 30 brands, mostly with Russian roots, are still operating," Kohut stated.
According to him, they are actively advertised on YouTube, Instagram, Telegram channels, porn sites and other resources.
"Such operators not only withdraw money from the Ukrainian market, but also receive sensitive financial information about the bank accounts of our citizens. Citizens are unprotected on these sites. The names of such brands are known to everyone, and most of them are controlled by Russian companies that were forced out of the market in 2023-2024," Kohut emphasized.
He added that Russian business is not going to voluntarily leave the Ukrainian market and is applying a comprehensive strategy consisting of three elements. The first is a technological war: the instant creation of "mirrors" of blocked sites, the second is legal wars in the courts, and the third is lobbying and information attacks aimed at discrediting the legal industry, individual operators and associations.
"Business needs effective support from the state. Strategically, the only way to make the market transparent and reduce the shadow segment is to help legal operators become more competitive compared to illegal ones," the AUGO president believes.
In his opinion, this will have a quick effect on the budget.
"Thanks to the consolidated efforts of the state, regulators and legal business, the IGaming market has the potential to exceed UAH 60-70 billion in annual revenue in the coming years," Kohut summed up.
