PlayCity has answered to the prime minister since 18 September. The player’s rules did not move
Author
Kyrylo Demchuk
Published
18.09.2026
3 min read
The agency was moved out from under the digital minister. A hall’s permit, the age line and the restriction register stayed. The reporting desk changed. The button in the account did not.
A different office, not different rules
On 17 September 2026 the cabinet amended the Regulation on PlayCity by Resolution No. 1133. Since its creation in 2025 the agency had been coordinated by the minister of digital transformation. On 13 May 2026 Resolution No. 613 had already moved PlayCity into the prime minister’s area in the general coordination scheme; now this is written into the Regulation itself. The structure of the agency’s staff is also approved in agreement with the prime minister. None of that shows on a slot screen: the button is the same, the hall’s logo is the same, and a permit is either in the register or it is not.
The cabinet did not use that resolution to rewrite the powers. PlayCity still issues permits, watches the illegal market and runs restrictions. What changed is the desk it reports to, not the list of what it may demand from an operator. Anyone expecting that after 17 September “the fines were cancelled” or “the register was switched off” is reading the resolution backwards.
Another date sits nearby and is easy to mix in. On 26 August the cabinet dismissed the agency’s head, Hennadiy Novikov. His deputy, Oleksiy Tomashuk, was appointed acting head. That is a change of person. The 17 September resolution is a change of where the agency sits in government. One without the other does not mean new limits for a player.
- Before
Coordination through the minister of digital transformation.
- After
The cabinet coordinates PlayCity through the prime minister.
- Unchanged
Licences, inspections, the restriction register.
- Nearby on the calendar
On 26 August the cabinet dismissed the agency’s head, Hennadiy Novikov.
Resolution No. 1133 amends the agency’s Regulation: the cabinet now coordinates it through the prime minister. The right to inspect halls and issue permits stayed put.
Where to read the rules if only the desk moved
The hall’s card, the licence date and the line about PlayCity are still what you can check without knowing a resolution number. If the agency’s site still lists the operator’s permit, reporting to the prime minister does not cancel it. If there is no permit, a new desk does not create one after the fact.
For someone already on the restriction register, the sharper question is whether a hall reads the register at all. That is answered by an inspection, as in the fine for admitted self-excluded players, not by a government diagram. Resolution No. 1133 does not replace that match and does not cancel it.
So the summary is short. What changed is who the agency answers to. What did not change is the age of play, where a payout goes, and the fact that self-exclusion is supposed to stop a stake. Those lines still sit in the hall’s rules, not in a ministry’s name.