Best Online Casinos in Ukraine

History of Casino Games in Ukraine

Casino games in Ukraine have quite an eventful history. Dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries when casinos were spotted in Kyiv and Novgorod, mostly housing nobles at the time, Ukraine’s fall under the Mongol Empire in the 13th – 15th century brought about the first recorded ban on gambling in the country. However, this ban only proved to be a rocky reign rather than extermination for casino games, as underground casinos were still operating in Lviv and Odesa at the time.

Gaining freedom from the Mongol Empire thanks to a partnership that later birthed the Post-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which consisted of Ukraine and Poland, gambling became legal but heavily regulated in the 16th century. This regulation streamlined the availability of casinos to hotels and resorts, leaving mostly nobles to partake in the fun.

The Russian takeover of Ukraine in the late 18th century cut short the casino experience, placing a ban on gambling once again. However, this ban was lifted again in the 20th century under the Soviet Union’s rule.

Gaining independence from the soviet union in 1991, Ukraine witnessed the largest proliferation of casinos, which increased even more with the advent of online casino sites in Ukraine in the early 21st century. In 2009, Ukraine placed a total ban on Ukrainian Online Casinos and walk-in gambling establishments in a bid to curtail the widespread virus.

However, in 2020, the Ukrainian government passed a new law legalizing and regulating all forms of gambling and establishing a body to regulate casino games establishments, the Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries.

Now, the Ukrainian gambling industry records a yearly income of over $1 billion.