Ukrainian Gaming

By: Aydin Guney

inally, the long-awaited operations of

Fgaming have started at 14th of May with openings of two casinos in the capital city of Ukraine, Kyiv.

Shangri La network brand casino, represented in Riga, Minsk, Tbilisi and Yerevan, opened in the most luxurious hotel in Kiev - Fairmont Grand Hotel with 20 live game tables and 80 slot machines from best manufacturers. Michael Boettcher, founder of Storm International and Chief Executive Officer Darren Keane solemnly cut the red ribbon at the entrance to Shangri La Kyiv casino to the applause of colleagues.

As well Casino Billionaire at the five-star hotel Inter Continental Kyiv started to operate. A premiumlevel playroom located in a place that combines the historical and business part of the city of Kiev. In five cozy halls with luxury interior and total area 506,8 sq.m located 16 gaming tables and 50 slots,.

Playhouse offers its guests a classic set of games: blackjack, Russian poker, Texas poker, ultimate poker, three-card poker, roulette, and the most modern slots from IGT, EGT and Novomatic. The size of the pool and jackpots will be quite interesting for the picky indoor guests.

In the best of the world’s highest-class traditions, Billionaire guests will have additional services available: hotel bookings, premium car transfer, exquisite cigar card and bar card with a large stock of Old World wines, vintage cognacs, whisky and classic cocktails.

While Kyiv city took the lead for opening their doors to their guests, Odessa’s first and biggest operation started at 14th of May in luxurious five-star hotel “Hotel Gagarin”. First Casino is a brand operated under Nebula Games. With it`s 40 card games tables, 9 American Roulettes and 300 slot machines in 5000 m2 spacious area, First Casino holds the reputation of being the largest operation all over Ukraine at the moment. In the meantime, Nebula Games opened first legal casino in Lviv at 23rd of May too. The Grand Hotel Lviv houses the first official casino in Western Ukraine - First Casino. Casino offers its visitors 12 gaming tables and 55 modern slot machines from leading manufacturers.

Beside all the openings, the head of the State Agency for Tourism Development Maryana Oleskiv announced that they have been working hard on categorizing hotels by their stars according to rules for last two months and managed to categorize 249 accommodation facilities, 48 of them are located in Kiev, 201 - in the regions and according to her, 44 hotels in Ukraine have the category “5 stars”, 88 - “4 stars”, 86 - “3 stars”, 15 - “2 stars”, 17 - “1 star” and among them are those hotels that are planning or have already opened casinos or slot machine halls.

On the 17th of May, the Ukrainian Gambling Council was established by Anton Kuchukhidze to monitor compliance with the general rules of the gaming legislation and ensure transparency in this field. Boris Baum has been appointed as Honorary Chairman of the gambling business, while Mykhailo Koval is Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Gambling Council for Legal Affairs and Victoria Zakrevskaya takes role as Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Gambling Council for Communication, aimed at uniting industry experts and operators of gambling business and ensuring adequate communication with media and state authorities.

As Casino Life Magazine Ukraine, we wish all the operators which have already ‘taken the flag’ and started their operations the very best luck and we wish all the success to UGC (Ukrainian Gambling Council) for further development.