Gambling has always attracted the attention of society. They have gained wild popularity, causing a desire to get easy money, to feel the euphoria of every victory and incredible opportunities for personal enrichment. However, over time, gambling became addictive and led to the fact that most players simply cannot stop in time and continue to invest personal funds in this activity. Pathological gamblers begin to seek increasingly risky actions in pursuit of the desired reward. Such a passion for gambling becomes a psychological defect of these people, causing negative consequences for the entire society.
Ludomania among officials
In 2023, a trend appeared among Ukrainian officials to declare their own income from gambling winnings. After analyzing 6,740 declarations, “Slidstvo.Info” journalists published data that 6,500 officials have more than UAH 156 million in winnings in casinos and lotteries. Most often, officials declared winnings from “Spaceix” LLC (“Cosmolot”), “Slots UA” LLC, “VBet Ukraine” LLC, “Gamedev” LLC, as well as from the gaming company “Parimatch”, which in March 2023 got under the sanctions of the National Security Council. Olga Hudyk, a police officer of the patrol police of the Kosiv district police department of the Ivano-Frankivsk region, indicated the largest winnings – almost 44 million hryvnias – in the declaration. At the same time, she noted that this is a win for her husband, who works as an operational officer in the same district police department. However, his declaration shows a profit of only 20 thousand hryvnias, not 43 million. Such inconsistencies in declarations may be the result of a tax evasion scheme.
“Some casinos scattered money on random people. This became apparent already when people started preparing the declaration and saw some receipts that were never officially entered on the card.” – explained People’s Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
In general, at the beginning of February, the Bureau of Economic Security seized 700 million hryvnias from the accounts of the gambling company “Kosmolot”, which is suspected of evading the payment of 1.2 billion hryvnias in taxes. At the same time, not only the officials themselves play gambling, but also their children. For example, the daughter of Iryna Tymoshenko, the head of the critical infrastructure security service, Kateryna, who holds a position in the State Special Intelligence Service, received 2,000 hryvnias of winnings, which her mother indicated in her own declaration. Iryna denies her relationship to the online casino and, apparently, does not approve of her daughter’s participation in it. A similar story happened with Oleg, the son of the judge of the Zarichnensky district court. His father, Roman Svitlichny, indicated in his own declaration 70,000 hryvnias of income from his son’s participation in the lottery. At the same time, the representative of the law enforcement system, the prosecutor of the Sokal Department of the Chervonograd District Prosecutor’s Office, Bohdan Butsky, in the declaration for 2023, indicated a profit of UAH 891,000.
According to civil servants, they are pushed to participate in ludomania (behavioral disorder consisting in a pathological passion for gambling) by problems in their personal lives or overload at work. For example, Viktoriya Kurnytska, judge of the Skoliv District Court of the Lviv Region, explains her excitement with negative events in her life.
“I haven’t played since March. And so I had a depressive state, that’s why I played. I didn’t have a minus, so I decided to stop on this happy note. I’m mentally healthy.” – says the head of the court.
Some officials indicate a completely different reason for ludomania – the desire to earn extra money. As they say, their salary is not enough to meet their needs, and here is a tempting opportunity to make extra money easily and quickly. As an example, it is possible to cite an interesting tendency to gain, which is observed in the head of the personnel management department of the Izyum district state administration, Vitaliy Nikonenko. In 2023, he received two prizes in the amount of UAH 335,000 and UAH 118,000. Nikonenko himself has been playing for quite some time, and in 2022 the man also won 118,000 UAH, and in 2021 – 35,000 UAH and 730,000 UAH. In 2018, the official declared 20,000 UAH of income
In total, out of more than 6,500 declarations with winnings, more than a thousand employees indicated that they received winnings in two different places, 214 – declared prizes from three casinos, 50 officials “successfully tested Fortune” in four gambling firms, four “successfully turned their backs” at once in five places, and in three – intervals between work at the expense of Ukrainian taxpayers, he was lucky to win six computer programs at once.
Ludomania in society
Ludomania captured not only officials, but also ordinary Ukrainians. Gambling addiction has the following symptoms:
- deep involvement in the gameplay;
- regular increase in time spent playing games;
- complete change of interests;
- lack of interest in other matters;
- inability to stop the game in time;
- psychological discomfort;
- a strong desire to take a big risk;
- feeling of constant emotional tension and irritability;
- inability to resist one’s addiction;
- attacks of aggression;
- mixing the game world with the real world;
- financial crisis;
- changing behavior and values.
Ludomania can lead to a serious chronic illness and drag a person into big debts and even create problems with the law. Cravings for gambling begin to arise in people due to dissatisfaction with their own lives, prolonged loneliness, overestimation of the value of material values, the desire to receive an easy reward, insufficient attention from relatives, participation in the game of someone close to them, and an innate tendency to addiction.
The attention of the community to the dangerous influence of online casinos and the growing role of the ludomania epidemic in the Armed Forces and Ukraine as a whole was drawn by Pavlo Petrychenko, a soldier of the 59th Brigade. According to him, this wave of gambling addiction was created by such factors as constant advertising and the legalization of gambling, so the state must immediately start to control players. After all, almost 9 out of 10 servicemen became addicted to gambling, lost their entire salary and got into significant debts.
The serviceman registered his own petition on the president’s e-petition website, which immediately received the 25,000 votes necessary for its consideration. In it, he formulated a demand for the government to strengthen control over casinos and introduce a number of restrictions for military personnel.
According to the data of the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries, as of June 19, 2024, 7,739 people have already entered the registry of gambling addicts in Ukraine. At the same time, 87% of them have been registered since 2023, and in the current year the number of such persons has increased 8 times. In two years, 171 persons were excluded from the register due to the expiration of the limitation period. 99% of people entered the register based on their own declaration of self-limitation. Only 1% of people were included in the list by the decision of KRAIL. According to the court’s decision, no person was included in the register.
Most often, single people with an income of 2 to 7 thousand hryvnias, workers in the service sector, students and unemployed people aged 18 to 35 became addicted to alcohol. In Ukraine, most of the Ludomans are located in Chernivtsi (16%), Ivano-Frankivsk (14%), and Dnipro (12%). Lviv (6%), Cherkasy (3%) and Uzhhorod (1%) play the least. Players choose slot machines the least (only 16%). 17% of people like casinos, 19% place bookmaker bets, and most of all they choose the lottery (45%). 66% of lottery players play it no more than once a year. 54% of respondents are sure that the lottery is not capable of causing addiction, while 86% of respondents could not stop in time. 4% of people gamble with their own money, and 20% once gambled, but then stopped. 51% of people were not interested in gambling at all, and 10% condemned gambling and gambling. 66% of lottery players bought tickets once a year, and 15% of respondents played several times in 2-3 months. 86% of the players surveyed claimed that they play only for fun, 7% lost control over their own gaming process, and 3% began to cheat their family and spend personal money on gambling.
But every medal has a flip side. According to KRAIL, the state received 828 million hryvnias from gambling. Even during the war, new gambling establishments continue to open and additional jobs are created. In the period from January to May 2024, the State Budget received UAH 7.38 billion in taxes and fees from the gambling business. Compared to previous years, revenues have tripled. The legalization of gambling in Ukraine contributed to stimulating the economy and providing additional funds to the State Budget. But, as People’s Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak points out, those gambling establishments that maliciously avoid paying taxes should be monitored.
“Implement an online monitoring system, close financial gateways, limit advertising and reboot KRAIL”, – calls Zheleznyak.
However, all the same, gambling poses a certain threat to Ukrainian society, so the government has developed a set of measures to limit players’ access to gambling establishments, enter gambling addicts into the appropriate register, control the licenses of gambling organizers and promote the prevention of gambling. The primary actions to overcome the threat were the clarification of information and awareness about the problem of addiction, the development of a healthy approach to gambling. It is necessary to counsel people about the development of addiction and teach them to enjoy the game without harming themselves. For those who have already had problems with gambling, the state provides additional counseling to prevent the problem from worsening and helps people overcome addiction.
It is obvious that the legalization of the gambling business is an effective way to replenish the state budget. Of course, everyone decides to play or not. After all, gambling is just one way to distract yourself from everyday problems, not a panacea for them, or a way to make money.
