Сasino ua may actually be an old-new player in the Ukrainian gambling market
The gambling market in Ukraine continues to develop and more and more newcomers are entering it. According to KRAIL data, there are 21 companies in the list of online casinos in Ukraine. The last of which received a license in December 2023. But it happens that behind the supposedly “newcomer” of the market there is a company that has been working closely for a long time.
On October 19, 2023, Casino.ua LLC received a license to open an online casino on the Internet called Casino. According to specialized review sites, Casino_ua has a minimum deposit amount of 50 hryvnia, and you can bet from 100 hryvnia for withdrawal. Funds are credited to the gaming account instantly, but withdrawals must wait up to 72 hours in accordance with the general regulations of the brand. It is mandatory to go through the identification procedure; the user must send his data in the form of a photo or scan of a passport to the technical support service address.
The site is also easy to use and visually pleasing, and its advantages include a relatively simple and clear design, generous bonuses and ease of receiving them, many ways to contact support and resolve issues mainly in the player’s favor. The disadvantages are that the site is not accessible from many countries, and the pages themselves load slowly.
Since the online casino opened quite recently, there is no data on its financial activities, especially since the company that owns the license, Casino_ua LLC, was registered only in July 2023, 3 months before receiving permission to operate on the Internet.
LLC "Casino_ua" we write, but we understand Favbet
According to data from the analytical service YouControl, the owner of Casino_yua LLC is the famous entrepreneur Andrei Valeryevich Matyukha, the owner of a whole group of companies specializing in gambling. Undoubtedly, the most famous of them is the Favorit company, which worked in Ukraine under the brand of the same name, and has now turned into Favbet, which was able to take full advantage of the fall of the former leader, Parimatch, from the gambling Olympus of Ukraine.
In addition to the online casino, back in December 2022, Favbet bought a license for bookmaking activities. The latter, by the way, is very logical, because the supporting structure of TM Favbet in Ukraine is called Bookmaker Company “Favbet” LLC.
It is curious that according to the latest reporting for 2022, it earned only 22.9 million UAH, despite the fact that the annual fee for an online casino license is 23.4 million UAH. However, as evidenced by court registry data, the domestic gambling business, and Favbet is no exception, prefers to use numerous tax evasion schemes.
Thus, in criminal proceedings No. 72022000400000003 dated September 19, 2022, Favbet is mentioned among dozens of banks and online casinos that participated in miscoding.
As Commentaries wrote, the essence of this scheme is a conspiracy between banks, betting companies and firms dealing with cash. Thus, banks process non-cash payments from online casino players in the form of money transfers to “random” individuals, but in fact to employees of gas stations, supermarkets and other business structures that deal with cash. Thus, their employees receive “black” wages on a bank card. Instead of these payments, gas stations and supermarkets give banks “black cash” for which goods are purchased. This product is exported abroad and sold, and the money received is given to the owners of online casinos.
This type of activity was very common in the gambling market of Ukraine in 2022, until Ukrainian law enforcement officers took over it, and was called “miscoding”, since banks changed the payment destination codes when making payments.
As the owner of Casino_ua and Favbet, Andrey Matyukha is friends with any government
The Favbet brand itself, or at that time “Favorit”, arose in Ukraine in 1999, 2 years later it went into the online format, creating its own casino on the Internet. When gambling was banned in Ukraine in the summer of 2009, the owners of the company - the Matyukh family, represented by Sergei, Daria and Andrey, went to other markets and were right.
Thus, at that time “Favorite” operated in an online format under the license of a gaming “paradise” on the island of Curacao in the Caribbean Sea. The license, issued on December 29, 2010 under number 121466 from the company Favorit United NV, and later extended on October 15, 2020, was on the old version of the Favbet website until it was replaced by licenses from the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries (CRAIL).
In addition to “legality”, the license of the offshore jurisdiction of Curacao allowed not to pay taxes in Ukraine. In any case, Ukrainian economist Alexey Luponosov stated that in 2020 the company indicated in the report 565 thousand hryvnia losses, and at the end of 2021 it paid only 202 thousand hryvnia in military duty, personal income tax and a single social contribution.
It is possible that Favbet could “successfully” save on taxes by taking advantage of its owner’s friendship with the authorities, which was reported every now and then in various media.
For example, in 2014, the media wrote that Matyukha’s London company was registered at the same address with the companies of a number of people from the circle of ex-President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. Among them were the wife of the ex-head of the State Administration of Affairs Andrey Kravets - Marina Pelikh, ex-people's deputy from the Party of Regions Eduard Prutnik, who is called the “godson of Viktor Yanukovych”, head of Ukroboronexport Vladimir Kazadoy, ex-Gazprom member Bohdan Budzulyak, raiders TVi channel and others. It is unlikely that without maintaining at least neutral relations with such people, one could be at the same address.
On the other hand, already in 2015, the media discovered connections between Favbet and the Secretary of the National Security Council of Ukraine, Alexander Turchynov.
As Bigus-info found out, Favbet of the Matyukh family was a co-founder of a number of gambling clubs - Lucky Land, United Green Planets and Planet Earth. The latter acted as some kind of places for selling lottery tickets, being part of the Ukrainian National Lottery company - from 2009 to 2021, one of the two companies that could conduct gambling business in Ukraine legally. True, from the point of view of national legislation, such activities were not considered gambling. And already the owner of UNL, Sergei Pindich, had a joint business with the family of Alexander Turchinov.
By the way, the chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, Daniil Getmantsev, is trying to repeat that “successful” experience, lobbying for the new bill No. 10100, which would allow lottery operators to enter the Ukrainian gambling market on preferential terms. For example, purchasing a license for online casinos, bookmaking, lotteries and slot machines will cost lottery operators 10 times cheaper than other gambling participants.
Despite Favbet’s statement about leaving the Russian and Belarusian markets, you can find information on the Internet that the company allegedly continues to make money in these countries. This allegedly happens through the Russian LLC KEY ACCOUNT MERCHANDISING, owned by the partner of the owner of Favbet, Sergei Malyar.
