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(AsiaGameHub) –   A court in Kyiv, Ukraine, has ordered the liquidation of Premier Palace, once one of the capital city’s most well-known casinos.

The court’s decision comes as leaders of Ukraine’s gambling industry warn that the country’s illegal betting sector has grown to $1.4 billion.

Ukrainian media outlet Antikor reports that the Kyiv Commercial Court issued the liquidation order for Premier Palace, bringing a long-running bankruptcy case to a close.

Government officials opened a case against Premier Palace’s operator in May 2024. A trustee appointed by the court spent several months locating assets that could be used to repay creditors.

Most of the casino’s creditors are from the public sector, as Premier Palace accumulated more than $8.5 million in unpaid fines, energy bills, rent, and taxes.

The largest creditor of Premier Palace Casino is Ukraine’s state gambling regulator PlayCity, and the casino owes the government body roughly $3.5 million.

Premier Palace Casino Bankruptcy Is Finally Made Official

The court’s presiding judge ordered bailiffs to stop all property disposal activities and launch the official liquidation process.

The casino is now formally recognized as bankrupt, and all of its business operations have been ordered to stop.

The judge appointed an insolvency administrator to act as liquidator, and instructed the administrator to sell off all of the casino’s remaining assets by mid-2027.

Nearly all of Premier Palace’s creditors will most likely leave the process with little to no compensation, the media outlet reports.

The outlet adds that proceeds from selling the casino’s “furniture and equipment” are not expected to be enough to cover its multi-million dollar total debt.

This ruling marks the end of an era for Ukraine’s casino industry. The casino was part of the Premier Palace Hotel complex, located near Kyiv’s Khreshchatyk Street.

Khreshchatyk is Kyiv’s most central street and the heart of the city’s business district.

End of an Era

Premier Palace Casino was the first land-based casino to receive an official operating license after Ukraine legalized its gambling sector in 2022.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s leading gambling industry body says a recent survey of 2,500 Ukrainian residents found that 81% of people in the country placed an illegal online bet in the previous three months.

Oleksandr Kohut, President of the Association of Ukrainian Gambling Operators, stated the illegal gambling sector has grown to $1.4 billion, per reporting from Ukrainian media outlet NV.

Kohut said that the illegal market’s share, relative to the size of the legal sector, has grown by 4.6% over the past 12 months.

“The results are significantly worse than we expected,” said Kohut. “The current trend is clear. The unlicensed segment is growing aggressively and continues to take business away from the legal market. Ukrainian players continue to migrate to the gray zone.”

The survey found that most people who gamble in the illegal sector believe unregulated casinos offer faster payouts. Around 6% of respondents said they prefer illegal casinos because these platforms allow bets to be placed with cryptocurrency.

Warning From an Industry Leader

Kohut is calling on the Ukrainian government to ease regulations on legal gambling operators and refocus efforts on cracking down on the illegal sector.

“If the status quo continues and the [government] continues to suppress the legal market under the guise of combating problem gambling, the market will accelerate its shift toward illegal operators,” he said.

Ukrainians will continue to “migrate en masse” to the unregulated sector, he said, “and the state will lose tax revenue.”

The same industry body has also pushed back against claims that gambling has become a widespread problem within the Ukrainian military.

In March, the group said a survey of soldiers found that military personnel gamble “no more than the average Ukrainian.”

The association released this finding after politicians called for a full ban on gambling for members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Earlier this month, a court in the Tyachiv District of Zakarpattia sentenced a female Ukrainian postal worker to two years of probation.

The worker stole money from local pensioners in the district and spent the stolen funds on online casino gambling.