One of the most popular bookmakers in Ukraine today, Favbet — owned by former Russian citizen Andrii Matiukha — has accumulated numerous grounds for criminal investigations, license revocation, and even sanctions. Despite russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Favbet has not annulled its trademarks in russia and Belarus while actively minimizing its tax obligations in Ukraine. However, while the Ukrainian authorities hold other gambling operators accountable for similar actions, the Favbet brand remains untouchable.
How the Government Cleared the Path for Favbet to Dominate the Gambling Market
Recently, Ukrainian media reported that Favbet has become the new leader in the gambling market, securing this position due to the downfall of previous market leaders — either through sanctions or criminal investigations.
As is known, in spring 2023, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposed sanctions on Parimatch, the former market leader, as well as on the Russian betting company 1xBet. A few months before that, the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (KRAIL) revoked the license of FanSport, and by 2024, legal troubles had begun for three more major market players: Vbet, Cosmolot, and Pin-Up. Vbet had its accounts frozen due to suspicions of money laundering and ties to russia; Cosmolot was accused of evading more than 1 billion UAH in taxes; and the nominal owner of Pin-Up was detained by the State Bureau of Investigation.
This effectively cleared the way for Favbet, which now holds five KRAIL licenses to operate in Ukraine. Unlike most other gambling operators, Favbet has not faced any law enforcement actions — a fact that seems suspicious. Could it really be that Ukraine has found a gambling company that operates transparently, pays all taxes, and has no ties to russia — unlike nearly every other major player in this industry?
Not quite. We conducted an in-depth investigation into Favbet’s activities over the past few years and came to a clear conclusion: someone is protecting this gambling operator. The company has at least as many — if not more — grounds for criminal prosecution and sanctions as those that have already been stripped of their licenses in Ukraine.
How Favbet Operated Illegally for Two Years, Avoiding Hundreds of Millions in Budget Payments
Let’s start with the fact that Favbet operated illegally for two full years after the Ukrainian government legalized the gambling market in 2020. While other companies were paying tens and hundreds of millions of hryvnias in license fees and taxes from their official activities, Favbet continued to accept sports bets without a license until the end of 2022. The company’s key and most profitable license — for bookmaking — was only issued to LLC “Bookmaker Company Favbet” on December 28, 2022.
However, the company was actively operating during this period. It ran several betting platforms, including www.favbet.com, www.favorit.com.ua, and others, while reporting no profits to the state. According to official financial reports, LLC “Bookmaker Company Favbet” ended 2021 with a declared loss of 31 million UAH, which increased to 40 million UAH in 2022. Yet, in 2023, when the company finally obtained its bookmaker’s license, its revenue sharply increased — Favbet reported a total revenue of 9.8 billion UAH and a net profit of 1.7 billion UAH.
But Favbet was just as active in 2021 and 2022, operating both as an online casino and a bookmaker. This indicates that the company generated similar levels of revenue and profit during those years, but those numbers simply bypassed the tax authorities. And, notably, not a single law enforcement agency noticed or took action against this, allowing Favbet to secure its market dominance without the usual obstacles — such as criminal cases for illegal operations and tax evasion.
Nothing but Losses: How Favbet Evades Paying Profit Taxes
While Favbet’s bookmaking business is now legal, its other companies continue to report nothing but losses to the state. LLC “Favorit Casino Company,” which has held a casino license in Kyiv’s Mercure Kyiv Congress Hotel since November 2021, ends every year in the red. In 2022, it reported a 91 million UAH loss, in 2023, the loss grew to 96 million UAH, and in the first two quarters of 2024, the casino recorded a negative profit of 29 million UAH.
The same goes for LLC “Favbet Game Slots,” which operates slot machine halls under the Favbet brand and has been licensed since late 2021. This company is also deeply unprofitable: it ended 2022 with a nearly 31 million UAH loss, 2023 with a 27.5 million UAH loss, and 2024’s first two quarters with a negative profit of 5 million UAH. Based on Favbet’s financial reports, gambling appears to be an incredibly unprofitable business—they just can’t seem to make any money. Or perhaps they do — but at the same time, they find ways to deceive the state, inflating expenses to avoid paying Ukraine’s 18% corporate profit tax — a tax that is now more critical than ever for national defense.
At the same time, according to Opendatabot, as of late 2021, Favbet was among the top three operators in Ukraine’s slot machine market, ranked by total floor space occupied by gaming halls. At the time, Favbet controlled 2,649 square meters, which accounted for 7.9% of all officially registered slot machine venues in the country — placing the company in third place, behind only the Win and First brands.
So, isn’t it odd that a company with such a dominant market share consistently reports losses in what is one of the most profitable industries today?
And here’s another curious detail. In 2022, all three LLCs operating under the Favbet brand across different gambling sectors reported millions in losses. Yet, the Favbet Foundation, a charity fund established by Favbet in 2020, somehow managed to donate 193 million UAH to the Ukrainian state budget, the Armed Forces, and war-affected citizens in the first year of russia’s full-scale invasion.
Where did this money come from if, according to their reports, there were only losses everywhere? This suggests that Favbet is generating substantial undisclosed profits — enough to spend nearly 200 million UAH on PR-friendly donations while officially claiming financial distress. If this isn’t a direct sign of operating a shadow business, then what is? These reported losses are nothing more than a tax evasion scheme, dressed up as financial misfortune.
Some “market leader” — but only in terms of losses.
How Andrii Matiukha Learned to Cut Deals with the Government
If Favbet’s official records show it as an almost unprofitable business — except for the sudden profits of LLC “Bookmaker Company Favbet” in 2023 — then the group must be making money somewhere else, through unofficial and illegal channels. Just as it did for 11 years when gambling was outlawed in Ukraine, from 2009 to 2020.
The owner of the Favbet Group is Andrii Valeriiovych Matiukha. He founded the “Favorit” betting company (which was the brand’s name until recently) back in 1999. In 2001, he launched a website for accepting bets, and by 2005, his network had expanded to over 90 cities in Ukraine, operating nearly 170 betting locations. By 2013, Favbet had entered Belarus, in 2016 — Romania, and by 2018 — Croatia.
As is well known, gambling was banned in Ukraine in 2009, but that didn’t stop Andrii Matiukha from continuing to grow his now-illegal business. Like most operators in the industry, he disguised his betting sites and slot machine halls as lottery operations, which remained legal under Ukrainian law.
From time to time, law enforcement agencies caught onto Matiukha’s schemes. In 2013, a criminal case was opened, revealing that several companies under Matiukha’s control — including LLC “Dnipro-Viktoria,” LLC “Favorit Invest,” LLC “Fansportclub,” LLC “Modern Payment Systems,” and LLC “World Payment Systems” — had been running illegal gambling operations for years under the cover of state lottery licenses. Later, the Kyiv Prosecutor’s Office conducted searches at Favbet offices, seizing dozens of computers and other related equipment.
In 2016, as part of criminal case No. 12016100040000990, police investigators even uncovered the money-laundering network Matiukha used to funnel bookmaking profits from “Favorit Sport”. Player funds were funneled into LLC “Primefort” and LLC “Neuron Gold”, then transferred to other companies under Matiukha’s control — LLC “Planeta Sport,” LLC “Sport Arena,” and LLC “Sfera Max.” A significant portion of this money was also laundered through LLC “Media Scope Global” under the guise of advertising services for “Favorit.” According to case materials, these illegal profits were ultimately used to purchase real estate and luxury cars.
At the time, even the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on the “liquidation” of the Favorit betting company, stating that it was financing terrorist activities in eastern Ukraine — most likely by paying out winnings to residents of occupied Donbas territories. However, despite all these attempts, law enforcement agencies never managed to bring Andrii Matiukha to justice.
Why was he never prosecuted? Possibly because Matiukha learned an important lesson early on: as long as you negotiate with the authorities, your business — legal or not — will remain untouched.
In 2013, hackers from the international Anonymous group leaked the email inboxes of Party of Regions MPs, exposing hundreds of internal messages. Among them was an email from Andrii Matiukha, sent from [email protected], in which he complained to the ruling party about constant police raids on his illegal betting operations. He revealed that he was already paying $150,000 per month in bribes to law enforcement but was getting no guarantees of stable operations. His proposal to the government was simple — centralize the payments through the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and stop paying off local authorities:
“The total amount of monthly payments across Ukraine (to law enforcement agencies) is now about $150,000, but this does not provide any guarantees of stable operations. The company is ready to cooperate with the Ministry (of Internal Affairs) directly and cease payments at the local level. If all our betting locations in every region can operate without disruption, we are willing to increase the monthly payments to $200,000.”
It seems his proposal was accepted — because Matiukha’s betting halls continued to operate, and he never faced trial. Just as he did back then, Matiukha appears to have mastered the art of striking deals with the authorities even today. While his competitors are being shut down, sanctioned, or prosecuted, Favbet continues to operate without interference, despite serious questions about its transparency.
How Favbet Took Bets Without a License for Two Years – and Faced No Consequences
The first major question concerns Favbet’s operations in 2021-2022. As we detailed earlier, Andrii Matiukha deliberately avoided legalizing his bookmaking business, securing a proper license only at the end of 2022. Why? Because a bookmaker’s license is the most expensive in the gambling industry — costing 108 million UAH per year. And because sports betting is his primary and most profitable business, sharing profits with the state after years of operating illegally was clearly not part of his plan.
It wasn’t until January 2022 that the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (KRAIL) issued a formal written demand to Favbet to restrict access to its website www.favbet.com in Ukraine, as the company was still providing betting services without a license. However, in May 2022, journalists from Delo.ua published an investigation revealing that Favbet was still illegally operating in Ukraine. This means that Matiukha ignored KRAIL’s demand and continued business as usual.
Yet, not a single criminal case was opened against him — despite violating gambling laws, ignoring regulatory orders, and failing to pay taxes. The state simply waited in silence until Andrii Matiukha finally decided to start sharing his profits and apply for a license to legitimize his operations in Ukraine.
Until then, everyone simply watched as the owner of one of Ukraine’s most heavily promoted gambling brands continued operating illegally — through multiple websites and mirror domains — for nearly two full years after gambling was legalized. The result? At least 216 million UAH in unpaid licensing fees — not counting taxes on revenue siphoned into offshore accounts.
And Matiukha has plenty of offshore companies. In fact, half of his vast network of companies is registered in offshore jurisdictions such as Cyprus, Malta, Belize, and the UK. For example, the gambling license for www.favbet.com was issued under Favorit United N.V., which is the parent company of Cyprus-based Bintpash Ltd — the entity responsible for processing Favbet’s player payments. The director of Bintpash Ltd is Ihor Sosoniuk, a business partner of Andrii Matiukha.
Matiukha himself is the beneficial owner of at least seven companies registered in the UK and Malta.
And while Ukrainian authorities allowed him to operate without a license, the money flowing through www.favbet.com never entered Ukraine’s war-time economy or state budget. Instead, it was funneled into Andrii Matiukha’s offshore firms.
How Favbet Lied About Its Operations in Russia
The second major question about Matiukha’s business transparency is even more revealing. In May 2022, Favbet issued an official statement, making a firm and absolute claim that the company does not operate in russia or Belarus. Moreover, Favbet even claimed that it had never operated in the russian market: “Throughout its entire history, Favbet has never operated in russia… Favbet not only no longer operates in russia but has never operated there in the first place. Favbet has never had offices, licenses, or payment systems for clients, and certainly never engaged in any marketing activities.”
At the same time, however, the statement also included a curious contradiction: “Player registration from russia is closed, and accounts of russian users that had existed on the site over the past 22 years have been blocked.” So Favbet never operated in russia, yet somehow had to block thousands of russian player accounts? Quite an inconsistency, wouldn’t you say?
Even a basic check of russian business registries and databases immediately raises serious questions. If Favbet never operated in russia, then why did it register its trademark in the country, with legal validity lasting until December 30, 2024? That’s nearly three years into russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The company handling the registration of this russian trademark was LLC “Bet Invest”, which was founded on June 17, 2014, in moscow — right in the middle of russia’s war in Donbas. The company’s listed director was Tatyana Anatolievna Kotsiak, a russian citizen who, in 2015, even registered a sole proprietorship in annexed Crimea, the russian equivalent of an individual entrepreneur.
The Favbet trademark is still valid in russia and will remain so until March 3, 2030, since no one has revoked the rights to it. According to moscow’s patent office, it was personally registered by Andrii Matiukha in March 2020.
The failure to annul Favbet’s russian trademark is a clear reason for sanctions against the bookmaker. After all, in spring 2023, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (RNBO – edit.) and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Parimatch for precisely the same reason—maintaining an active trademark in russia after the start of the full-scale war. As reported by RBC-Ukraine, the licensing agreements for Parimatch’s brand usage in russia were formally terminated in September 2022. The Cypriot holding company “Rillius Holding Limited,” which owns the Parimatch™ brand, claimed it had revoked its franchise agreements with russia both legally and technically in March 2022.
Parimatch later attempted to challenge this in Ukrainian courts, filing a lawsuit against RBC-Ukraine. However, the Supreme Court’s Commercial Cassation Court fully dismissed the case, thereby confirming that the mere existence of an active trademark in a foreign country constitutes business activity in that country.
Meanwhile, at the same time, the Favbet trademark remained active in russia, valid until the end of 2024, yet no Ukrainian authority seemed to notice or impose sanctions. So why was Parimatch stripped of its licenses and sanctioned, while Favbet remained untouched, despite identical evidence of continued presence in russia? What makes Favbet’s russian trademark any different from Parimatch’s?
Now, let’s go back to Favbet’s claim that they never operated in russia. Are they sure about that? Even without mentioning the fact that Favbet.com continued to accept bets from russian users and residents of occupied Ukrainian territories throughout the years of russian aggression, paying out their winnings, as evidenced by numerous online reviews from russian players about Favbet and Favorit, there’s a simple question: If Favbet never operated in russia, then why register a trademark there? And not just at any time, but in 2014 — right as russian troops annexed Crimea and invaded Donbas.
So why did Andrii Matiukha decide to register an international trademark in russia in 2020 — a full six years into russia’s war against Ukraine? And why did he issue notarized power of attorney to russian citizen Tatyana Kotsiak, the director of LLC “Bet Invest,” to represent his interests in russia?
Is Andrii Matiukha a Russian Citizen?
Why did he need a russian passport, a fact he has consistently denied? There is a photo of a russian passport under the name Andrii Matiukha available on the internet, but its authenticity is difficult to verify. However, even today, some russian registries indicate that for a long time, Andrii Valeriiovych Matiukha was officially listed as a citizen of the russian federation — right up until November 11, 2022.
Already holding russian citizenship, Matiukha was assigned a russian taxpayer identification number (TIN) 770505760695, which was valid from October 11, 2001, until November 11, 2022.
Although Matiukha has since renounced his russian citizenship, he still holds a new russian TIN 920459743181, which remains active today. Moreover, russian registries list a registered residential address for him in russia: 18 Velykaya Pionerskaya Street, Apt. 25, Moscow.
In other words, until late 2022 — more than six months into russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — Favbet’s owner was still a russian citizen. More than that, he continues to hold a russian TIN, which likely enables him to pay taxes to the budget of the aggressor state.
For reference, Ukrainian authorities imposed sanctions on Parimatch Tech for a far lesser offense — because some of its affiliated companies were founded by russian citizens. Yet here, we have a case where the owner of an entire gambling empire was personally a russian citizen, and somehow, no one in Ukraine noticed, nor did they create any obstacles for Andrii Matiukha’s business operations.
How Favbet Continues to Operate in Belarus
In its May 2022 statement, Favbet claimed that as of March 1, 2022, it had completely ceased operations in Belarus, stating that all betting halls, websites, offices had been shut down, and its license had been surrendered. However, despite these claims, LLC “Favbetbel” is still operating in Belarus. The company registered four Favbet trademarks in Belarus, three of which remain valid until 2028 and 2029. Moreover, this same company held a Belarusian bookmaker’s license valid until February 14, 2024.
According to Belarusian corporate registries, Andrii Matiukha remains a direct founder of LLC “Favbetbel” alongside his UK-based company Andalidi Invest LTD. Until fall 2022, Matiukha was listed as the owner and director of Andalidi Invest LTD, before transferring the company to his business partner Valerii Sokol. Meanwhile, the director of LLC “Favbetbel” is Maxim Starychenko, a Belarusian citizen to whom Matiukha granted a notarized power of attorney in 2021, authorizing him to represent Matiukha’s interests in Belarus until 2024.
So, how “clean” and “transparent” is Ukraine’s so-called new leader in the gambling market, as some media outlets portray it? And why have Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, the RNBO, the executive branch, and the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries completely ignored the numerous red flags surrounding Favbet? These concerns include: tax evasion by an entire group of companies, which continuously report losses year after year; operating illegally as a bookmaker for two years without a license; maintaining active trademarks and business entities in both russia and Belarus.
Why has the Ukrainian government overlooked all of this when it did not hesitate to act against numerous other gambling operators? Has Ukraine’s leadership found a favorite in the gambling industry — one that is allowed privileges others don’t have?
P.S. Over the past three years, Andrii Matiukha has not lived in Ukraine. According to BlackBox OSINT, since January 2022, he has been permanently residing in Croatia. During this period, he has traveled to 25 different countries, including Argentina, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Qatar, Chile, Uruguay, the UAE, and the Maldives — in addition to various European nations. He has not been to Ukraine even once since the start of the war.
A curious question arises: how did Matiukha settle in Croatia? Under what passport did he register — as a Ukrainian refugee, or does he hold another citizenship? After all, at some point, his Ukrainian passport will expire, and as is well known, Ukrainian embassies and consulates no longer renew documents for draft dodgers.