The head of the Verkhovna Rada's tax committee, Danylo Hetmantsev, made counterclaims to the TVO of the Minister of Digital Transformation, Oleksandr Bornyakov. He also stated that despite the publicity about the court filing from Oleksandr Bornyakov, Hetmantsev has not yet received a lawsuit from him.
The head of the Verkhovna Rada's tax committee, Danylo Hetmantsev, made counterclaims to the TVO of the Minister of Digital Transformation, Oleksandr Bornyakov. He also stated that despite the publicity about the court filing from Oleksandr Bornyakov, Hetmantsev has not yet received a lawsuit from him.
The People's Deputy's statement was a response to a publication by lawyer Masi Nayem, whose law firm Miller is suing People's Deputy Danylo Hetmantsev.
"On Monday, Bornyakov informed the whole country through his lawyer that he had filed a lawsuit against me. But there is still no lawsuit. Everything is as usual - there is a presentation, there is no case. Bornyakov, where is the lawsuit? I demand that Bornyakov file a lawsuit and I want to prove in court the crimes committed by Fedorov's team and his Bornyakov," said Danylo Getmantsev in his video address.
The MP's statements were a response to a publication by the Ministry of Digital Affairs, in which the agency tried to refute Hetmantsev's "manipulations" regarding the reform of the gambling market. Hetmantsev presented his counterarguments on each of the points, publishing them in the public space.
In particular, the Ministry of Digital Affairs claimed that PlayCity had already imposed more than 80 million UAH in fines for illegal advertising of gambling. In turn, Getmantsev noted that the regulator has been turning a blind eye to pirated resources such as uakino.best and kinoukr.tv for months. According to him, he personally reported these sites to the authorities back in November 2025, but illegal advertising is still spreading there. The deputy emphasized that these platforms do not have the status of online media and age restrictions, which is a direct violation of the law.
Regarding the speed of response to illegal casinos, the ministry claimed to block violators within 24 hours. Hetmantsev denied this, drawing attention to the fact that the relevant body often does not notice the shadow market. According to the data provided, during January-April 2026, only at the requests of the SBU, BEB and other law enforcement agencies, about 200 websites had to be blocked, which PlayCity simply “did not see”.
Separate criticism was received by the order of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, which allows players to independently set spending limits as a percentage of their income. The politician believes that such an approach will not work for people with gambling addiction, since the law does not provide mechanisms for verifying the specified amounts. This creates a risk that gamblers will artificially inflate their income for the sake of being able to place further bets, which is beneficial to the gambling business.
Hetmantsev also denied the ministry's statements that Mykhailo Fedorov had not been responsible for the gambling sector since 2022. He referred to government resolution No. 924 of August 2022, which directly established the issue of organizing gambling and lotteries under the competence of the Deputy Prime Minister.
In addition, the politician rejected accusations that there were no changes in lottery legislation. According to him, a law initiated by his committee was adopted at the end of 2024, which destroyed the monopoly of three national operators and allowed companies with foreign experience to enter the market.
The public confrontation between the Tax Committee and the Ministry of Digital Transformation regarding the regulation of the gambling market has been going on for several months and has recently reached the judicial level.
The other day, Bornyakov called Hetmantsev's previous accusations a "systemic campaign to discredit the Ministry of Digital Transformation," based on "manipulations, substitution of facts, untrue statements, and outright lies."
Below is the full position of the Ministry of Digital Affairs:
“The claim that Law No. 4116-IX destroyed the monopoly of three state lottery operators does not follow from the content of the Law of Ukraine “ On State Lotteries in Ukraine ” itself.
Yes, in December 2024, amendments were indeed made to Part 6 of Article 6 of the Law "On State Lotteries" to take into account the experience of conducting state lotteries in other countries. It is this norm that Danylo Hetmantsev now refers to as evidence that the market has been "opened" to new foreign operators.
But the problem is that this amendment changed only one requirement - work experience. All other requirements for state lottery operators remained unchanged.
The operator of state lotteries can only be a legal entity registered in the territory of Ukraine (Part 1 of Article 6). That is, a foreign operator cannot simply participate in the competition based on its status in another state. To do this, it must create a separate legal entity in Ukraine and bring it into compliance with the requirements of the law.
Among such requirements are the authorized capital of at least UAH 30 million, formed exclusively with cash (Part 5, Article 6), as well as the presence of a distribution network for state lotteries, and the operation of representative offices in each settlement with a population of over 500,000 people (Part 2, Article 6).
The Law clearly states: the company must confirm its compliance with these requirements at the time of applying for a license (clause 3, part 6, article 6)
Moreover, the competition itself is defined as a method of selecting operators by assessing the indicators of a person's ability to carry out activities related to the issuance and holding of lotteries (clause 22, part 1, article 1). That is, during the competition, the state assesses not the future intentions of the company, but its actual compliance with the requirements of the law.
A vicious circle arises. On the one hand, to obtain a license, a foreign company must already meet the requirements for a state lottery operator, including being registered in Ukraine, having authorized capital, representative offices, and a distribution network. On the other hand, it cannot deploy such a distribution network and raise money before it receives the right to conduct such activities.
A separate issue lies in the very logic of the norm that People's Deputy Hetmantsev is talking about.
The law allows taking into account the experience of conducting state lotteries in other countries. However, the Ukrainian market is built on a rather "specific" structure, where state lottery operators are actually private companies operating on the basis of licenses.
A natural question arises: in which other country in the world is there a similar model, where the state lottery is actually a private business, able to freely enter the markets of other countries? In most countries of the world, state lotteries are either directly organized by the state or operate within the framework of national legislation and national infrastructure.
Therefore, the norm on the recognition of foreign experience in itself seems disconnected from the real structure of the global lottery market. It creates a formal opportunity for foreign operators to participate in the competition, but does not take into account either the specifics of Ukrainian legislation or the peculiarities of the functioning of state lotteries in other countries.
To sum up, if Law No. 4116-IX had truly eliminated the monopoly and created conditions for competition, we would have already seen new applicants for licenses. But this did not happen. And the reason is obvious: the amendment on foreign experience remained a technical and empty change, while the key financial and infrastructure barriers to market entry remained unchanged.
In essence, these changes created more of an appearance of "potential competition" with foreign operators than a real mechanism for their entry into the Ukrainian market.
It is to eliminate these contradictions that the Ministry of Digital Development has developed amendments to the legislation on state lotteries, which should create clear and realistic rules for access to the market instead of absurd norms that exist only on paper. You can read the draft Law in detail at the link .," the ministry replied.
