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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
One of the most dynamic online casinos in Ukraine — Cosmobet — is formally owned by Mykhailo Zborovskyi, whom the media presents as a “successful IT entrepreneur,” visionary, and reformer of the gambling market. However, behind the public image of an apparently independent businessman lies another reality: Zborovskyi effectively serves as a cover for the people and interests that stand behind the casino.
At the end of 2023, a new player appeared on the Ukrainian gambling market — Cosmobet. The online casino quickly obtained a license, launched a large advertising campaign, and by the summer of 2024 it was gaining speed. The company “Neuralink,” which obtained the license and owns the Cosmobet trademark, declared almost 218 million hryvnias in revenue in its first year of operation.
On all official platforms, the face of the project is Mykhailo Zborovskyi. He gives interviews, comments on trends, writes columns about “responsible gambling,” and talks about his “10 years of IT experience.” Everything looks good, neat, and... suspiciously smooth.
Who is Mykhailo Zborovskyi and what does Russia have to do with it
In the Ukrainian business environment, news about Mykhailo Zborovskyi only started after the casino’s registration. Before that — no public projects, no investments, no real confirmations of the claimed experience.
According to Opendatabot, individual entrepreneur Zborovskyi was registered only in 2020. He is listed as operating in the field of programming. Previously he did not own any significant companies, was not involved in large deals, and, moreover, did not invest millions in gambling.
Yet in 2023 he becomes the ultimate beneficial owner of LLC “Neople”, and subsequently of LLC “Neuralink,” which receives a state license for gambling. According to documents, he contributes 30 million hryvnias to the authorized capital, pays for the license — and from that moment becomes the “owner” of the casino. Not bad for a person with no business history, right? Looking ahead — from May 2025 he again became a simple individual entrepreneur, but about that — below.
If you dig deeper, it becomes clear: Cosmobet is not such a “Ukrainian” project. In almost all independent investigations (Anticor, Slidstvo.Info, Antimafia.se) the name of Sergey Tokarev appears — a Russian businessman, owner of a gambling network, previously connected with the Cosmolot brand. When pressure on Cosmolot began, Tokarev moved assets, re-registered the platform — and presented it as a new structure with a new face.
Reference: Tokarev Sergey Olegandrovich. Owner of Cosmolot casino, ally of the minister of digital transformation, Fedorov, and at the same time holder of a Russian passport. In 2018 he was included in sanctions lists for financing the popular jihadi groups in Donbas, in which he should have remained until 2021, but in 2020 he received amnesty from the new government.
Thus, in the scene appeared Mykhailo Zborovskyi. But documents, testimonies, and ownership structure point to the opposite: Cosmobet is not a new platform but a continuation of an old scheme. Only with a new facade. Parallel to the Cosmobet launch, an intensive media campaign began to shape the image of Zborovskyi. On Google, pseudo-interviews on English-language sites with dubious traffic appeared en masse (BaronBlakeslee, TheComfortCenter); articles about “Zborovskyi’s influence on the tech market”; fake analytical reviews about his “role in the digital transformation of gambling.” All of this is material without specifics, with identical phrasing, uploaded simultaneously to sites unrelated to Ukrainian IT or gambling. Moreover — some of them were clearly backdated.
Next — more interesting: according to Lumen Database, a number of materials criticizing Zborovskyi were removed from search results following complaints about “reputation damage.” And for some reason, this cleanup is handled by specialized PR agencies that operate from Russia.
It’s noteworthy that among the sites on which the LLC “Ivi.ru” files complaints is antikor.info, which repeatedly wrote about Zborovskyi and his role as the “financier” in Tokarev’s gambling business. Yet somehow Russian PR people turned “Antikor” into a site that hosts pirate copies of films. The explanation is simple — a poorly executed bid to scrub the biography.
Similarly poorly executed is the bid to position Mykhailo Zborovskyi as a “successful IT professional and entrepreneur.” This scheme is typical for pseudo IT projects with criminal roots: there is a “clean” figure (Zborovskyi) who seems to run the company; there are real owners (Tokarev and entourage) who hold the finances and control; there is a license issued by the Ukrainian regulator — and that’s it. Then — publications, media framing, sponsored articles, reputation cleansing.
Did they decide to “flush” Zborovskyi?
In the end — everyone is satisfied except journalists and society. The casino operates, taxes are paid, the “Ukrainian” face is there — and who is behind it all remains of little interest.
Officially, there are no inquiries from law enforcement about Cosmobet or Mykhailo Zborovskyi. The authorized capital is paid in, taxes are paid, the license is issued. But the story about 30 million hryvnias from a “programmer” with no assets raises serious questions. No one checks the sources of funding. The analysis of ultimate beneficial owners through offshore chains is not conducted. Publications about foreign ties (including Russian) are ignored.
Nevertheless, the materials that were so massively scrubbed by the Russian PR agency did have an effect — after a series of publications in Antikor, Antimafia.se, and Repost.News where Zborovskyi is called a “fund” and a “personality for profit extraction,” Tokarev was forced to “flush” Zborovskyi.
This is confirmed by the registration data of Neuralink LLC and Neople LLC — Mykhailo Zborovskyi is removed from the beneficiaries, and in his place stands Cypriot citizen Andriy Dobrovolskyi.
There is not much information about him either, but Andriy Dobrovolskyi appears to be considerably more solid than Mykhailo Zborovskyi — he is listed as the owner of about a dozen various firms and charitable organizations. However, behind this could also lie the same “fund” story for solid people. For now, the investigation in this direction is not finished and it’s too early to draw conclusions.
Nevertheless, it is hardly a coincidence that the owner of LLC “Ivi.ru,” which sends complaints about publications on Zborovskyi, is the Cypriot company “Ivi.ru Media Limited.” With clearly Russian owners.
As for the change from Zborovskyi to Dobrovolskyi, in such schemes this is standard practice: as soon as the “mask” is exposed — it is removed. A new mask takes its place. And the casino continues to operate: the name stays, players keep depositing money, the money goes to the same pockets.
And finally — a question we want to ask the Ukrainian regulators and law enforcement: is it really not obvious that Zborovskyi is just a “front”? Or will you still “fall for this provocation”? In the case of Dobrovolskyi, the figure of the nominee looks more sophisticated, but it also raises huge questions. Will there be answers?
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Російська гральна гідра змінила вивіску: Сергій Токарєв сховав Cosmolot за брендом Cosmobet і Михайлом Зборовським". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Rozsliduvach.
