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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The official owner of one of the most dynamic online casinos in Ukraine — Cosmobet — is listed as Mykhailo Zborovskyi. In the media, he is portrayed as a “successful IT entrepreneur,” a visionary and reformer of the gambling market. However, in practice he appears to be more of a nominal figure. Behind his name, other people and an entirely different story are likely operating.
At the end of 2023 the Ukrainian gambling market welcomed a newcomer — Cosmobet. The online casino quickly obtained a license, launched a large advertising campaign, and by the summer 2024 it was gaining momentum. The company “Neolink,” which obtained the license and owns the Cosmobet trademark, declared almost 218 million UAH 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 began to surface only after the casino’s registration. Before that, there were no public projects, no investments, and no real confirmations of the claimed experience.
According to OpenDataBot, the entrepreneur Zborovskyi is registered as a private entrepreneur only in 2020. His activity is listed as “activity in the software development field.” Previously he did not own any significant companies, was not involved in large deals, and certainly did not invest millions in gambling.
Yet in 2023 the year, he becomes the ultimate beneficiary in LLC “Neoplei,” and later in LLC “Neolink,” which received a state license for gambling. According to documents, he contributes 30 million UAH of charter capital, pays for the license — and from that moment he becomes the “owner” of the casino. Not bad for a person with no business history, right? Looking ahead — from May 2025 he once again became a mere private entrepreneur, but more on that below.
If you dig deeper, you’ll find that Cosmobet is not such a truly “Ukrainian” project. In almost all independent investigations (Anticor, Slidstvo.Info, Antimafia.se) the name Sergey Tokarev surfaces — 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.
Profile: Sergey Aleksandrovich Tokarev. Owner of Cosmolot Casino, ally of the Minister of Digital Transformation, and at the same time holder of a Russian passport. In 2018 he was put on sanctions lists for financing the Donbas jihadi paramilitaries, into which he was supposed to be until 2021, but in 2020 he received “amnesty” from the new authorities.
Thus, on the stage appeared Mykhailo Zborovskyi. But documents, testimonies, and the ownership structure tell a different story: Cosmobet is not a new platform but a continuation of an old scheme. Only with a new facade. Parallel to Cosmobet’s launch, an intensive media campaign began to shape Zborovskyi’s image. In Google, there appeared numerous pseudo-interviews on English-language sites with dubious traffic (BaronBlakeslee, TheComfortCenter); articles about “Zborovskyi’s influence on the technology market”; fake analytical reviews about his “role in the digital transformation of gambling.” All of this is material with no specifics, on sites unrelated to Ukrainian IT or gambling. Moreover, some of them were clearly posted retroactively.
Next — more interesting: according to Lumen Database data, a number of materials criticizing Zborovskyi were removed from search results after complaints about “reputation violation.” And for some reason, specialized PR agencies working with Russia handle this cleanup.
It is notable that among the sites on which “Ivi.ru” LLC files complaints, there is antikor.info, which repeatedly wrote about Zborovskyi and his role as the “fund” in Tokarev’s gambling business. Yet Russian PR people made Anticor into a site that hosts pirate copies of films. The explanation here is simple — a shoddily executed order to suppress his biography.
The same shoddy execution applies to the positioning of Mykhailo Zborovskyi as a “successful IT professional and entrepreneur.” This pattern is typical for pseudo IT projects with a criminal base: there is a “clean” figure (Zborovskyi) who supposedly runs the company; there are real owners (Tokarev and his entourage) who control the finances and governance; there is a license issued by the Ukrainian regulator — and that’s about it. Then — publications, media framing, sponsored articles, reputation cleansing.
Did they decide to “dump” Zborovskyi?
In the dry summary — everyone is satisfied except journalists and society. The casino operates, taxes are paid, the “Ukrainian” face remains — and who is behind it all doesn’t concern anyone much.
Officially, there are no questions from law enforcement to Cosmobet or Mykhailo Zborovskyi. The charter capital is contributed, taxes are paid, the license is issued. Yet the story of 30 million hryvnias from a “programmer” without assets raises serious questions. No one checks the sources of funding. The analysis of ultimate beneficiaries through offshore chains is not conducted. Publications about foreign connections (including Russian) are ignored.
However, the materials that the Russian PR agency is mass-clearing did have an effect — after a series of publications in Antikor, Antimafia.se, and Repost.News where Zborovskyi is directly called a “fund” and a “person for money laundering,” Tokarev was forced to “dump” Zborovskyi.
This is confirmed by the registration data of Neolink LLC and Neopley LLC — Mykhailo Zborovskyi was removed from the beneficiaries, and in his place an Cypriot citizen, Andriy Dobrovolskyi, emerged.
Little information is available about him, but Andriy Dobrovolskyi appears considerably more solid than Mykhailo Zborovskyi — he is listed as the owner of about ten different firms and charitable organizations. However, this may also conceal a similar “fund” story for well-connected people. For now, the investigation in this direction is not complete, and drawing conclusions is premature.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely to be a coincidence that the owner of Ivi.ru LLC, which sends complaints about publications on Zborovskyi, is the Cyprus company Ivi.ru Media Limited, with clearly Russian owners.
As for the replacement of Zborovskyi with Dobrovolskyi, in such schemes this is standard practice: as soon as the “mask” is exposed, it is removed. A new one takes its place. And the casino continues to operate: the name remains, players keep depositing money, money goes into the same pockets.
And finally — a question I want to ask directly Ukrainian regulators and law enforcement: is it really not obvious that Zborovskyi is just a “cover”? Or will you keep “falling for this provocation”? In the case of Dobrovolskyi, the nominal figure looks more solid, but it also raises huge questions. Will there be answers?
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Маріонетка Зборовського, російський слід Токарєва та новий «фунт» Добровольський: хто насправді стоїть за казино Cosmobet". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: HAB Media.
