Russian gambling hydra changed its sign: Sergey Tokariev hid Cosmolot behind the Cosmobet brand and Mykhailo Zborovskyi

One of Ukraine’s fastest-growing online casinos — Cosmobet — is formally owned by Mykhailo Zborovskyi, who is portrayed in the media as a “successful IT entrepreneur,” visionary, and reformer of the gambling market. However, behind the public image of a supposedly independent businessman lies a different reality: Zborovskyi effectively serves as a front for the real people and interests behind the casino.

At the end of 2023, a newcomer appeared on Ukraine’s gambling market — Cosmobet. The online casino quickly obtained a licence, launched a large-scale advertising campaign, and by the summer of 2024 was already gaining significant momentum. NeuroLink LLC, which obtained the licence and owns the Cosmobet trademark, declared almost UAH 218 million in revenue in its very 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 experience in IT.” Everything looks polished, carefully arranged and... suspiciously smooth.

Who is Mykhailo Zborovskyi and what does Russia have to do with it

Mykhailo Zborovskyi only became known in the Ukrainian business community after the casino was registered. Before that, there were no public projects, no investments, and no real evidence confirming his claimed experience.

According to OpenDataBot, Zborovskyi registered as a sole proprietor only in 2020. His registered activity is “computer programming.” Previously, he had not owned any major companies, had not appeared in major transactions, and certainly had not invested millions in gambling.

Yet in 2023, he became the ultimate beneficial owner of Neoplay LLC and later of NeuroLink LLC, which obtained a state gambling licence. According to the documents, he contributed UAH 30 million in authorised capital, paid for the licence — and from that moment became the “owner” of the casino. Not bad for someone with no business history, right? Looking ahead, since May 2025 Zborovskyi has once again become an ordinary sole proprietor, but more on that below.

Digging deeper reveals that Cosmobet is not quite as “Ukrainian” a project as it may seem. In virtually all independent investigations (Antikor, Slidstvo.Info, Antimafia.se), the name of Sergey Tokarev emerges — a Russian businessman and owner of gambling networks previously associated with the Cosmolot brand. When pressure on Cosmolot began, Tokarev moved the assets, re-registered the platform, and presented it as a new structure with a new face.

Background: Sergey Oleksandrovych Tokarev. Owner of the Cosmolot casino, a friend of Digital Transformation Minister Fedorov, and at the same time the holder of a Russian passport. In 2018, he was placed on sanctions lists for financing the so-called people’s “jamahiriyas” of Donbas, where he was supposed to remain until 2021, but in 2020 he received an “amnesty” from the new authorities.

This is how Mykhailo Zborovskyi appeared on the scene. But documents, testimony, and the ownership structure suggest the opposite: Cosmobet is not a new platform, but a continuation of the old scheme. Only with a new façade. In parallel with the launch of Cosmobet, an intensive media campaign began to build Zborovskyi’s image. Google began to fill with pseudo-interviews on English-language websites with questionable traffic (BaronBlakeslee, TheComfortCenter); articles about “Zborovskyi’s influence on the technology market”; and fake analytical reviews about his “role in the digital transformation of gambling.” All of these are materials lacking specifics, using identical wording, and uploaded simultaneously to websites that have nothing to do with Ukrainian IT or gambling. Moreover, some of them were clearly uploaded retroactively.

Then it gets even more interesting: according to LumenDatabase data, a number of materials critical of Zborovskyi were removed from search results following complaints about “reputational violations.” For some reason, this clean-up is being handled by specialised PR agencies operating from Russia.

Interestingly, the list of websites targeted in complaints by IVI.RU LLC also includes antikor.info, which has repeatedly written about Zborovskyi and his role as a “front man” in Tokarev’s gambling business. For some reason, however, Russian PR operatives portrayed Antikor as a website distributing pirated copies of films. The explanation is simple — a poorly executed commission to clean up his biography.

The campaign to position Mykhailo Zborovskyi as a “successful IT specialist and entrepreneur” was executed just as poorly. This scheme is typical of pseudo-IT projects with a criminal foundation: there is a “clean” figure (Zborovskyi) who supposedly runs the company; there are the real owners (Tokarev and his associates), who control the finances and management; and there is a licence issued by the Ukrainian regulator — and everything is built around this. What follows are publications, media packaging, commissioned articles, and reputation clean-up.

Was Zborovskyi set to be “dumped”?

The bottom line is that everyone is satisfied except journalists and the public. The casino operates, taxes are paid, the face is “Ukrainian” — while no one seems particularly interested in who is actually pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Officially, law enforcement has no questions for either Cosmobet or Mykhailo Zborovskyi. The authorised capital has been contributed, taxes are being paid, and the licence has been issued. Yet the story of UAH 30 million coming from a “programmer” with no assets raises serious questions. No one is checking the sources of the financing. There is no analysis of the ultimate beneficiaries through chains of offshore companies. Publications about foreign connections, including Russian ones, are ignored.

However, the materials that the Russian PR agency has been so actively trying to scrub did have an effect — after a series of publications by Antikor, Antimafia.se and Repost.News, in which Zborovskyi was directly described as a front man and a “person used to channel revenues,” Tokarev was forced to “dump” Zborovskyi.

This is confirmed by the registration data of NeuroLink LLC and Neoplay LLC — Mykhailo Zborovskyi was removed from the list of beneficiaries and replaced by Cypriot citizen Andrii Dobrovolskyi.

There is also little information available about him, but Andrii Dobrovolskyi appears considerably more substantial than Mykhailo Zborovskyi — he is listed as the owner of around a dozen different companies and charitable organisations. However, this too could conceal a similar story of a “front man” acting on behalf of influential people. The investigation in this direction is not yet complete, and it is too early to draw any conclusions.

However, it is hardly a coincidence that the owner of IVI.RU LLC, which sends complaints targeting publications about Zborovskyi, is the Cyprus-based company IVI.RU Media Limited. With clearly Russian owners.

As for replacing Zborovskyi with Dobrovolskyi, this is standard practice in such schemes: as soon as the “mask” is exposed, it is removed. A new one takes its place. Meanwhile, the casino continues operating: the name remains the same, players continue depositing money, and the money continues flowing into the same pockets.

And finally, a question that should be asked directly of Ukrainian regulators and law enforcement agencies: is it really not obvious that Zborovskyi is merely a “front”? Or will you continue to “fall for this provocation”? In Dobrovolskyi’s case, the figure of the nominee appears more convincing, but it also raises enormous questions. Will there be any answers?