Ukraine's regulator PlayCity has fined about $116,000 (5.2 million hryvnias at the October 26 exchange rate) on Sport Segodnya LLC, which runs the online media Tribuna.com. The trigger was an advertisement using a brand under which illegal gambling is organized. The regulator announced this in its Telegram channel.
This is the company's second sanction for a similar violation. In October 2025, PlayCity fined it 4.8 million hryvnias (about $107,000) for covert advertising of illegal bookmakers.
The company challenged that fine in court. The court of first instance backed the regulator, and the media company filed an appeal. The new fine was issued separately from that case.
“Advertising illegal gambling is unacceptable,” PlayCity said.
In September, the regulator fined Ukrainian blogger and actor Bohdan Sheludyak 5.2 million hryvnias for advertising on his Instagram account. In April, the club Shakhtar received a fine of nearly the same amount for violations in gambling advertising.
Under an updated law in force since April 2025, media and culture workers, public figures and those who regularly earn from social media content are largely barred from advertising gambling. Professional athletes are exempt. Advertising is permitted in certain registered media aimed at audiences aged 21 and over, on operators' websites, and on platforms that can restrict display by age.
PlayCity has previously said that since it began work it has penalized 16 bloggers and media, and it cooperates with Meta, TikTok, Viber and Google to detect banned content.
