Personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions) due to annexation of Crimea and aggression in Donbas enforced by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on September 16 under the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine dated September 2, 2015 have been applied to two out of three operators of the Ukrainian lottery market - M.S.L. LLC and private joint-stock company Patriot (both based in Kyiv).

According to the document, five types of sanctions are applied to the companies, in particular, the prevention of removal of capital outside Ukraine and blocking of assets – the temporary restriction of the right to use and manage assets.

Other restrictive measures are the suspension of the fulfillment of economic and financial liabilities; termination of issuing permits and licenses to import or export currency to Ukraine or from Ukraine and restriction of the issue of cash using payment cards issued by nonresidents; the ban on the registration of participants of the international payment system, the payment organization of which is nonresident, by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).

According to the state register, the key owner of M.S.L. LLC is Cyprus-based Evolot Limited and the ultimate beneficiary is Cypriot Markos Shiapanis. The shareholder in private joint-stock company Patriot is Cyprus-based Cehriba Investments Limited and the ultimate beneficiary is Greek Ellada Pozidou who lives in Cyprus.

In the middle of August 2014, then Finance Minister Oleksandr Shlapak said that the law on state lotteries in Ukraine which has been in effect since October 2012 actually set up a monopoly of three private operators: M.S.L. LLC, the owner of which via Evolot Limited (Cyprus) are minority shareholders in Russia's Alfa-Group; private joint-stock company Patriot, the owner of which via Cehriba Investments Limited (Cyprus) is a Russian citizen and private enterprise Ukrainian National Lottery in ownership of Olympic Gold Holdings Limited (British Virgin Islands).

However, in earlier September 2015 Ukrainian National Lottery said that its new owner is Hungary's UNL Holding LLC. Its ultimate beneficiary is Ukrainian Serhiy Pindych.