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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Who really stands behind the online casinos Cosmobet and Championclub? The Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries has already ceased its activities. However, the licenses it issued remain valid and continue to bring their holders millions of hryvnias. At the same time, there is still no clear answer to the question of who actually benefits from these profits.
The outlet Comments investigated who is profiting from the online casinos Cosmobet and Championclub at the expense of Ukrainians. It turned out that this is not so easy to find out, although officially there really should be no open questions.
Cosmobet: Russian company or subsidiary of the Ukrainian GameDev
In March 2024 NeuroLink LLC received a license to operate the online casino Cosmobet. The stated business activity was organizing gambling; the charter capital is 30 million UAH. Although the website is currently inaccessible, the company generated almost 2024 nearly 218 million UAH.
The ownership structure is somewhat opaque. Officially NeuroLink is owned by another legal entity, NeoPlay LLC. Its business activity is computer programming, and its charter capital is 300.000 UAH. NeoPlay, in turn, is owned by a specific person: Mykhailo Zborovskyi.
Very little is known about the owner of a company with revenue of 218 million UAH. Although media interviews with Mykhailo Zborovskyi can easily be found in which he claims to have worked for more than ten years in IT and gambling markets in Asia, Latin America, Malta, and Curaçao, those interviews do not answer the questions at hand.
In particular, it remains unclear where Mykhailo Zborovskyi obtained at least 57,69 million UAH for NeuroLink’s charter capital and the annual license fee. By law, the charter capital of an online casino must be at least 30 million UAH, while the annual license costs 27,69 million UAH.
The origin of the 30 million UAH may possibly be explained relatively easily: the money could have been “diverted” from the parent company NeoPlay LLC. According to OpenDataBot, NeoPlay had assets worth 30,3 million UAH 2023. However, in year 2024 the financial report showed only assets of 2,5 million UAH and a loss of 30,6 million UAH.
This suggests that certain assets of the company may have been sold or otherwise contributed to the charter capital of NeuroLink LLC, which was founded in November 2023.
However, the origin of the nearly 27,7 million UAH for the online casino’s annual license remains unresolved. Of course, one could assume that Mykhailo Zborovskyi earned this money during his ten years of work in the markets of Asia, Latin America, and Europe.
However, 2020 a person with the same full name registered as an individual entrepreneur in computer programming. Since NeoPlay LLC also operates in this area, it is quite possible that the entrepreneur has been working in Ukraine since 2020. If he already had the necessary capital for the gambling business and ten years of industry experience back then, the question arises why he did not enter this market as early as 2021.
Some clues are provided by the company history of NeoPlay LLC, which was founded in July 2023. According to the registry data, the company initially belonged to a certain Oleksandr Lysyi. Zborovskyi took it over on 8 November 2023. NeuroLink LLC was then founded on 23 November.
A person with identical personal data, Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Lysyi, previously headed Fourth Fort LLC. The name of that company is not accidental, because its owner is the Belarusian citizen Andrii Lappo.
On this basis some media previously linked the online casino Cosmobet to Russian businessman Sergey Tokarev, who was allegedly also behind the online casino Cosmolot. However, that suspicion was not confirmed.
At the same time, media discovered an interesting connection that could lead to another major player in the online casino market: GameDev LLC. The company’s business activity is listed as organizing gambling; its charter capital is 30 million UAH.
According to intellectual property registries, the Cosmobet brand now owned by NeuroLink LLC was registered in 2021. The application was filed by businessman Ruslan Nonka. Since NeuroLink itself was only founded in November 2023, the brand apparently previously belonged to the businessman, who was among the first co-owners of GameDev LLC.
The media reported extensively about GameDev and its former owners, including Ruslan Nonka and Yakiv Finkelshtein. The latter is the founder and co-owner of a vodka brand and before changing his name was known as Yakiv Hrybov.
Although the company was officially sold to a family of agricultural entrepreneurs from the Odesa region, Yakiv Finkelshtein could still control the firm as well as the online casinos SLOTS CITY and Beton.
Championclub: a new facade for the ChampionCasino of a former Lutsk council deputy
Another new player, the online casino Championclub, appeared after the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries issued a license in April 2024 to Malyna LLC. The company’s business activity is organizing gambling; its charter capital is 30 million UAH.
The owner of the company is Ruslan Drozdov from the Volyn region. More is known about him, but questions still arise. Some answers are already partially known.
The central question remains the same: where did a man registered as an individual entrepreneur in computer programming 2014 obtain almost 58 million UAH for the company’s license and charter capital?
Drozdov was and is co-founder of several companies. Given Malyna LLC’s revenues of only three million UAH in year 2024, however, his business does not seem particularly successful.
Nevertheless, Ruslan Drozdov is no newcomer to the gambling market. He owns 14 percent of Lymon LLC, which organizes gambling and has a charter capital of 30 million UAH. Lymon operates the online casino ChampionCasino, which achieved turnover of 2024 with revenue of 2,5 billion UAH.
The fact that Championclub and ChampionCasino have the same co-founder and their names are obviously similar clearly points to a connection between the two brands. That connection does exist. However, behind both casinos it may not be the individual entrepreneur Ruslan Drozdov, but rather the “gambling king” of Lutsk, Andrii Pokrovskyi.
The media in his hometown Lutsk already gave the former city council deputy that nickname long before gambling was legalized in Ukraine.
In particular, the news agency Volynski Novyny claimed that Andrii Pokrovskyi entered the gambling business in the 2000s through a network of entertainment venues under his control. After the gambling ban of 2009 he reportedly said he had stopped the activity, but allegedly continued it.
According to media reports, Andrii Pokrovskyi allegedly ran the illegal gambling business in Lutsk through a network of companies and trusted persons. Among them the name Ruslan Drozdov also appears.
Drozdov was co-owner and director of several firms that belonged to or previously belonged to people who, according to Volynski Novyny, 2019 were involved in the illegal gambling business in Lutsk.
Andrii Pokrovskyi began his political career 2015 in the Petro Poroshenko Bloc. He is considered one of the wealthiest residents of Lutsk and was even discussed as a possible mayoral candidate. He apparently withdrew from politics: 2021 he left the Lutsk city council and focused on his business activities.
In his asset declaration filed when leaving the city council for 2021 he listed 38 real estate properties, ten vehicles, and the rights to a computer program called “Champion.” The name strikingly resembles the name of the online casino, which also operates on the basis of computer programs.
Thus it can be concluded that although formally new players appear on the Ukrainian gambling market, in reality old faces may be standing behind them. Even the sale of four companies from the top 10 of the gambling market seems largely to have been only a formality.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Glücksspiel hinter strohmännern versteckt: Mykhailo Zborovskyi und Ruslan Drozdov übernahmen die Casinos Cosmobet und Championclub". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Rozsliduvach.
