Nonka Ruslan Anatoliyovych

IT marketer who built Ukraine's first legal gambling empire

Ruslan Nonka is a Kyiv-based IT entrepreneur who entered the gambling business through digital marketing. He started as a marketer in the gambling industry — engaged in consulting on traffic acquisition for large companies in Asian and European markets, collaborating with World of Tanks and League of Legends. He described his path as follows: "Not all the money is mine. Only part of it. Some part is borrowed from banks, another part is attracted from other parties."

Gamedev, Slots City and British partner

LLC "Gamedev" was established in December 2019 by Maksym Kovtonyuk; Nonka joined a year later. The initial beneficiaries of "Gamedev" were Nonka (37.52%) and Briton Michael Paul Bottcher (47.5%) — founder of Storm International, which previously owned the largest casino chain in Moscow and the online casino PlayShangriLa. Together they launched two brands in Ukraine: Slots City and Shangri-La. In 2021, companies associated with Nonka paid over UAH 100 million for gambling licenses in Ukraine.

Exit and new assets

Since November 2023, Nonka is no longer listed among the beneficiaries of "Gamedev." Currently, he is the ultimate beneficiary of the financial company "Olimp-Finance," the companies "GambleTech" and "Notio Group" (computer programming), the publishing house "Lobster," and the sports club "22club."

Demining for 3 million at a tender price of 25 million

In February 2024, Nonka together with Finkelstein founded LLC "Transimpex Demining." At their first demining tender, the company reduced their offer from UAH 21.5 million to UAH 3 million — a drop of 85%. The Humanitarian Demining Center requested justification for the anomalously low price, which the company did not provide, and predictably lost. Media also speculate that the casinos Beton and Cosmobet may actually belong to the Finkelstein-Nonka duo — meaning the formal exit from Slots City could have been just a restructuring of assets.