Anton Kuchukhidze Head of the Ukrainian Gambling Council: Interview by Peter White
Casino Life Ukraine Magazine had an amazing opportunity to arrange an interview with Anton Kuchukhidze, Head of the Public Union “Ukrainian Gambling Council” (UGC).
For those who are not familiar with UGC, can we start this interview by explaining its purpose and the services it will provide to its members?
There are two main goals. The first is the unification and consolidation of all professionals and legal operators of the gambling market of Ukraine around improving the image of the gambling business as a whole for the general public. The topic has been used many times by politicians in a negative sense, purely for Political Technologies, to justify anti-state decisions like 2009, because some people filled their heads with fake information about what the gambling sphere is.
Therefore, we want to unite the efforts of everyone in favour of the entire market and this is in the interests of all gambling operators – to change the attitude of the population in this area to a positive one, to give real information about what gambling is, and not fake information spread by the opposition, and accordingly once and for all to remove the topic of gambling from the agenda of political manipulation.
The second task is to join forces to create a single center, a single voice for communication with state authorities. So that the state authorities have no doubt that someone is lobbying for narrow-profile, narrow-commercial interests of individual companies. We want to unite in one platform that will generate the right, effective solutions for areas that public authorities will trust and perceive at a professional level. Otherwise, even now many public organizations work separately with some companies, everyone is doing something, everyone is running somewhere. However, public authorities always have concerns about whether this is lobbying for an individual company, so we need to convey the position of the entire industry, which will be trusted. The main services are PR support, anti-crisis support and GR (dialogue with the authorities).
Victoria Zakrevskaya was recently appointed Chairman of the Gambling Association of Ukraine. Can you tell us about her and what she will bring to the role?
Regarding Victoria Zakrevskaya, she is a well-known media specialist, this is one direction of her activity. The second focus is her professionalism. She is related to gambling at the analytical level, she is a candidate for a PhD thesis in the field of gambling, compares the experience of Britain and Belarus, and studies the best practices of these states with the adaptation of these practices for Ukraine at the professional level. This is the trump card that Victoria has. Most experts do not have the same analytical level of knowledge in the gambling business as Victoria.
Victoria’s Zakrevskaya became the first member of the Ukrainian Gambling Council, and recently appointed deputy chairman for communications at UGC. The Gambling Association of Ukraine (GAU) will handle all our communication with the mass media and has a team built up over several years who have expertise in social media and associated communication and IT technologies.
Can UGC help organizations that want to enter the online gaming market in Ukraine?
UGC can definitely help foreign partners enter the Ukrainian market. We have the appropriate legal department. We have the opportunity for legal advice, we have relevant specialists, we have experts who have already gone through the entire licensing bureaucratic history with companies. They can share this with other UGC members, so we can provide all possible support and, most importantly, we can advise not only as an expert, but also give a real picture of how it all happens. Because there are a lot of fakes around the certification procedure, or the licensing procedure of a gambling operator. Accordingly, if you apply to UGC, you get responsible partners who know everything about how to do it, have passed this path themselves, and, secondly, we say and recommend responsible partners in Ukraine who are really professionally engaged in this issue at many levels.
Therefore, the most important thing is expertise and, secondly, the search for responsible partners for foreign investors from a wide range of issues-legal issues, certification advice, any other issues, absolutely UGC can share within the framework of membership in our structure, experience, contacts, expertise and responsible partners. Therefore, by contacting us, a foreign investor gets a shoulder of support and we really strive to attract foreign investments into Ukraine. UGC is not closed to foreign companies, UGC members who have joined us, they are absolutely open to this and they are rooting for foreign investment to finally enter the Ukrainian market.
The more foreign investment there is, the greater and stronger the competition in the market in Ukraine will be and accordingly, the more money the state budget will receive, and the more responsible this area will become given that a foreign investor will bring the already established practice of responsible play, the correct policy will bring such a signal to other investors that it is possible to work in the Ukrainian market. This is an absolutely civilized market, not as it was during the last 12 years, when the market was in the shadows, or until 2009, when the market was actually chaotic. For the first time in the entire history of Ukraine’s independence, a civilized gambling law has been adopted, which actually forms and develops the market, so it is really in the interests of the state and in the interests of such public large and associations as ours to promote foreign operators and partners to enter Ukraine.
What is your vision for the future of the gambling and betting industry in Ukraine?
As for the future, my dream is to see the Ukrainian gambling industry among the leaders in Central and Eastern Europe. I am convinced that the Ukrainian market has all the prerequisites for this, starting from adequate legislation and ending with human resources, a large level of IT knowledge, extensive experience of lawyers, a convenient location of our state, the real Europeanness of Ukraine and many other factors from the point of view of the high level of the service sector that our state has. Therefore, my dream is that Ukraine will become the centre of the gambling industry in Central and Eastern Europe.
.............Interview originally published July 2021 Casino Life Ukraine Issue 04
