Does Favbet meet the requirements of Ukrainian legislation?

One of the most popular Favbet bookmakers in Ukraine today, which belongs to the former Russian citizen Andriy Matussi, was in the center of the scandal. The company has accumulated a number of reasons to open criminal proceedings, deprivation of licenses and even sanctions.

Despite the full -scale war of Russia against Ukraine, Favbet does not cancel its trademarks in the Russian Federation and Belarus, which causes significant outrage among the public. At the same time, in Ukraine, the company minimizes tax liabilities over the state, which gives it a competitive advantage over other market participants.

It is interesting that as the Ukrainian authorities are actively holding responsibility of other gambling operators for similar violations, the FAVBET brand remains intact. This gives rise to suspicion of possible relationships of the company with influential persons who can help to avoid sanctions and investigations.

As the state cleared for Favbet the way to leadership in the gambling market

Recently, the Ukrainian media has published information that Favbet has become a new leader in the gambling market, taking this position due to the fact that previous leaders had lost their place either through sanctions or through criminal proceedings.

It is known that in the spring of 2023 the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposed sanctions on the then leader of the bookmaker market Parimatch, as well as on a Russian player 1xbet. A few months before, the Gambling Regulation Commission and Lottery canceled the Fansport Bookmaker license, and in 2024 the problems with the law began with three more market leaders-VBET bookmaker and online coll Non-payment of more than 1 billion UAH of taxes, and the nominal PIN-UP owner detained the State Bureau of Investigation.

Thus, the space for Favbet was cleared, which today has five licenses of downs to carry out its activities in Ukraine and, unlike most other operators, has no problems with law enforcement. What is suspicious: did the company that honestly operates in the gambling market really in Ukraine, paying all taxes, and has no links with Russia that almost every second player in this market has?

If it was. We have conducted a study of Favbet's activities in recent years and came to the conclusion that someone clearly "covers" this gambling operator, because the reasons for criminal prosecution and sanctions on Favbet are no less, and maybe more than other companies that have already been deprived of licenses in Ukraine.

As Favbet worked illegally for two years, avoiding payment of hundreds of millions of hryvnias to the budget 

To begin with, Favbet allowed itself to work illegally two years since the state legalized the gambling market in 2020. While other companies paid tens and hundreds of millions of hryvnias to the budget for obtaining licenses and as taxes from its official activity, Favbet continued to accept rates on sports without a license until the end of 2022 - a license for bookmaker, and it is the main and most profitable for FAVBET, LLC.

However, to this day, the company did not idle, but actively worked and engaged in bookmaker on several sites - www.favbet.com, www.favorit.com.ua and others. And at the same time she did not show no profits to the state. According to the official financial statements of the FAVBET BOKMEKER Company, 2021, the company graduated with a loss of UAH 31 million, and in 2022 it increased and amounted to UAH 40 million. Only in 2023, when the company finally had a license for bookmaker, the profit "Favbeth" became positive: income amounted to 9.8 billion UAH, and net profit - UAH 1.7 billion.

But in 2022, and in 2021, Favbet worked as actively as an online casino and as a bookmaker. Therefore, it can be assumed that somewhere the same figures of income and profit, the company had in these years, they just passed the tax. And, typically, no law enforcement agency noticed it, allowing Favbet to confidently go to the market leadership without such obstacles as criminal proceedings for illegal activity and non -payment of taxes.

Only the losses themselves. How Favbet evades income taxes 

It is clear with bookmaker, but other Favbet firms continue to show solid losses today. LLC "Favorite Kazino Company", which since November 2021 has a license to work Casino in Kiev at the Mercure Kyiv Congress Hotel, also not a year-that is minus profit: in 2022 it amounted to 91 million UAH, in 2023, the loss increased to 96 million UAH. million UAH.

Or Favbet Game Slotz LLC operating the gambling halls under the Favbet brand, having a license for it since the end of 2021, is also completely loss: 2022, the firm finished with a loss of almost UAH 31 million, 2023-at 27.5 million UAH, and two quarters 2024. Well, this gambling business, judging from the reports of Favbet companies, is not possible to make money. Or it is possible, but at the same time it is possible to fool the state, drawing a bunch of "left" expenditures, so as not to pay 18% of income tax. So necessary for the state for defense.

At the same time, according to Opendatabot, as of the end of 2021, Favbet was included in the three leaders in the market of gambling machines in terms of the area of ​​occupied gambling halls - at that time in Favbet it was 2649 square meters, which was 7.9% of the country, or the area of ​​all official wires.

That is, it is strange, with such a proportion on the market year after year, to end with losses, working almost in the most profitable business to date.

And yet an interesting nuance. According to the results of 2022, all three LLCs operating under the Favbet brand in different gambling markets have shown millions of losses. But at the same time, the Favbet Foundation Charitable Foundation, founded in 2020 by Favbet, in the first year of a full -scale invasion of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, reported on referral to the state budget and in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the victims of the war of Ukrainians 193 million UAH. Where does the money from the fund, when do not look - just losses? It turns out that somewhere on the side the company still has profits of unknown origin, from which she was able to propagate for almost 200 million UAH. What is not a direct sign of shadow business and confirmation that all these in reports are in the reports are nothing but minimizing tax liabilities? Such a "market leader" is not bad. Unless the loss.

As Andrei Matyukha learned to negotiate with power 

If officially FAVBET is almost unprofitable business except for the demonstration profits of LLC "FAVBET" Bookmaker Company only since 2023, then somewhere a group of companies should earn an informally and illegal. As she did all 11 years of gambling outlawed - from 2009 to 2020.

The owner of the Favbet group is Matyukha Andriy. He founded the Bookmaker "Favorite" (this is the recent time called the Favbet brand) in 1999, in 2001 he opened a website for rates, and in 2005 the network covered more than 90 cities of Ukraine and numbered about 170 points of reception. In 2013, the company started working in Belarus, in 2016-in Romania, in 2018-in Croatia.

It is known that a gambling business has been banned in Ukraine since 2009, but this has not been a barrier to Andrei Matyukha to continue developing their already illegal business in Ukraine. Like most other businessmen in this area, gambling valves and sites for sports, he disguised as lotteries that the state left legal.

Matyukhi firms were operating periodically: criminal proceedings were opened in 2013, which found that Andrei Matyusi-controlled LLC Dnipro-Victoria, Favorit Invest LLC, Fansport Club LLC, Modern Payment Systems and Payment Systems LLC covering it with licenses for the release and distribution of the state lottery. Later, the Kyiv Prosecutor's Office searched the Favbet offices, seizing dozens of computer equipment.

In 2016, police investigators in the framework of criminal proceedings №12016100040000990 even installed a chain of firms Andriy Matyukha, through which he pumped money earned on the bookmaker "Favorite Sport". The players were included in the accounts of Primefort LLC and Neuron Gold LLC, and then transferred to other companies, controlled by Matuses - Planet Sport LLC, Sport Arena LLC and LLC "Sphere Max". In addition, much of the money was legalized through Media Skop Global LLC for advertising services for Favorite. According to the materials of the proceedings, illegal profits were spent on the purchase of real estate and cars.

At the same time, the SBU even reported the "liquidation" in Ukraine of the Bookmecker Office "Favorite" because it financed terrorist activity in eastern Ukraine - obviously, paying the winners of the occupied areas of Donbass. However, no attempt to prosecurely attract Andrei Matyukh to justice.

Why? Perhaps because Andrei Matyukha has learned the rule since then: it is necessary to agree with the authorities, then the business, no matter how illegal it may be, will be whole and unharmed. In 2013, the hackers from the International Anonymous group broke the mailboxes of the Party of Regions, and published many letters identified. Among them was Andrei Matyukha's letter from the address [Email Protected] , in which he appealed to the "regionals" with a complaint that his illegal bookmaker had to be subjected to constant "plaque"

“The amount of monthly payments in Ukraine (law enforcement) is now about $ 150,000, but this does not give any guarantee of more or less stable work. The company is ready to cooperate with the Ministry (internal affairs) centralized and not cooperated on the ground. If all our items in all regions are steadily operating, we are ready to increase the amount of monthly payments to $ 200,000, ”Andrei Matyukha addressed the authorities, asking instead an operational reaction from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the event of another" plaque "at his gambling halls.

Apparently, the proposal was accepted - Matyukhi halls continued to work, and he did not find himself on the defendants on all these years. As then, perhaps, the owner of the Favbet manages to agree with the authorities, because today his business, despite a bunch of issues regarding his transparency, will not undergo, unlike his competitors, no attacks by law enforcement officers and the authorities as a whole.

As Favbet for two years impunity was raised without a license 

And the first of these issues concerns FAVBET activities in 2021-2022. As we have already mentioned in the public investigation above, Andriy Matyukha did not legalize his bookmaker, taking the appropriate license only at the end of 2022. Why? Because the bookmaker license is the most expensive of all others and costs 108 million UAH a year, as well as because the sports rates are the main, and therefore, the most profitable of all other Matyukha business. It was obviously not wanted to share profits with the state after so many years of illegal work.

Only in January 2022 did the Gambling Regulatory and Lottery regulation commission to FAVBet to limit access to Ukraine to www.favbet.com, from which the company continued to provide Betting services without a license. Judging by the fact that in May 2022, journalists of Delo.ua wrote in her investigation into FAVBET illegal work in Ukraine, so the site continued to work freely in Ukraine at that time, so Matyukha ignored the requirement of downs.

And at the same time, he did not receive any criminal proceedings for breach of the gambling business, ignoring the requirements of the license authority and non -payment of taxes. The state simply waited silently when Andrei Matyukha "matures" to share her profits and will finally be licensed for bookmaker and will start working in his country legally.

And before that, everyone simply watched how the owner of one of the most digestible brands of gambling continued to work illegally through a number of sites and mirrors to them, in fact, as much as 2 years from the moment of market legalization. And this is at least 216 million UAH of unpaid licensing fees to the state budget, not counting taxes on offshore revenues.

And the offshore in Matyukha is more than enough. In fact, half of its deployed network of companies are registered in the jurisdictions of Cyprus, Malta, Belize and the UK. Kursao's license, for example, for www.favbet.com was received by Favorit United NV, which is the founder of the Cypriot company BintPash Ltd, which is engaged in receiving and processing Favbet players. The director of this company is Igor Sosoniuk, a business partner Andrei Matyukha. Andriy Matyukha himself is a beneficiary at once seven companies registered in the UK and Malta.

And while the Ukrainian authorities allowed Matussia to work without a license in Ukraine, the money of users of the site www.favbet.com went not to the budget of a belligerent country, not to its economy, but to any of these offshore firms Andrei Matyukha.

As in Favbet lied about their work in 

The second question of Matyukha's transparency is even more interesting. In May 2022, Favbet published his statement, which contained a rigid and unpaid statement that the bookmaker did not work in the Russian Federation and Belarus. Moreover, the company stated that it has never worked in the Russian market. “In the history of Favbet's existence, he did not work in the territory of the Russian Federation ... Favbet is not that no longer operates in the Russian market, but did not work. Favbet had neither offices nor licenses, no means for customers, especially, he did not carry out any marketing activities, " - said in a statement stating that" the registration of players from the Russian Federation was closed, the accounts of players who were on the site for 22 years. That is, the Russian Federation has never worked, but the accounts of players from the Russian Federation had to block - an interesting contradiction, isn't it? Let's see if Matyukha was told the truth.

Even a surface analysis of Russian registers and databases immediately points to a bunch of interesting questions. If Favbet has never worked in the Russian Federation, then why Favbet registered in this country its trademark, which lasted until December 30, 2024 - that is, just a month ago, almost three years since the beginning of the full -scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine.

The registration of this TM was engaged in the Russian LLC "Beth Invest", registered in Moscow in the midst of the war in the Donbass - June 17, 2014. The director of this LLC was a Russian citizen Kotsyak Tatiana Anatoliivna, who in 2015, by the way, registered in the annexed Crimea individual entrepreneurship - Russian analogue of our FOP.

But the trademark of Favbet with international registration, which is still valid in the territory of the Russian Federation and will be valid until March 3, 2030, because no one has recalled the certificate for the rights to this TM, according to the Movskov Patent Service, in March 2020 Andrei Matyukha personally registered.

The fact of absence of cancer of the TM Favbet in Russia is the reason for imposing sanctions on a bookmaker. Because in the spring of 2023, the NSDC of Ukraine and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Parimatch bookmaker just as their trademark in Russia after the Great War of the Last War against Ukraine. As RBC-Ukraine wrote, "Parimatch (in Russia) was stopped in September 2022 in the fact 2022.

It was this moment that Parimatch tried to challenge the Ukrainian courts, filed a lawsuit against RBC-Ukraine, but the Cassation Commercial Court in the Supreme Court, as a result, completely rejected the claim of the Parimatch group against journalists, in fact, confirming that the presence of a trademark in another country was a sign.

At the same time, the Favbet trademark, which no one was withdrawn and which was valid until the end of 2024, continued to operate on the territory of the Russian Federation. Again, no one in the Ukrainian authorities did not pay attention to it, no one imposed sanctions on the bookmaker, although the situation is similar - the same signs of presence in Russia, for which one company was on a sanction list and was deprived of licenses and the other - not. How, so to speak, the Favbet trademark acting in the Russian Federation is better than Parimatch's trademark?

Well, returning to Favbet's statement that they never worked in Russia. Exactly? Without even referring to the fact that the site favbet.com has taken races from the Russians and the residents of the Ukrainian territories they occupied, and paid them the winnings, as evidenced Even nequally in 2014, when Russian troops annexed Crimea and introduced their troops to the Donbas, starting a war there.

Then why Andrei Matyukha and in 2020 decided to register a sign with international registration of Favbet in the aggressor state, which continues to be in force there today? And why did he publish notarial power of attorney to the citizen of the Russian Federation Tatiana Kotsyak, the director of Beth Invest LLC, to represent his interests in Russia?

Andriy Matyukha - a Russian citizen? 

And why he needed a passport of a Russian citizen, the presence of which he constantly denies. You can find a photo of a Russian passport on the name of Andriy Matyukha, but it is difficult to confirm its authenticity. However, even today, some Russian registers demonstrate that for a long time Matyukha Andriy Valeryevich passed them as a citizen of the Russian Federation until November 11, 2022.

Already with Russian citizenship, Andriy Matyukha received in Russia the identification tax number 770505760695, which was valid from October 11, 2001 to 11 November 2022.

To date, Matyukha came out of Russian citizenship, but still has a new IDN 920459743181, which is current today. In addition, the Russian registers contain Matyukha's residence address in Russia: Moscow, str. Great Pioneer, building. 18, apt. 25.

That is, the Favbet owner, in fact, by the end of 2022 - more than six months from the beginning of a full -scale war - remained a citizen of Russia. Moreover, he now continues to have a Russian IDN, which probably allows him to pay taxes to the budget of the aggressor state.

It should be reminded that the Ukrainian authorities also imposed sanctions on the bookmaker Parimatch for the fact that the structure of Parimatch Tech companies included companies created by citizens of the Russian Federation. And here the story is such that the owner of a group of companies himself was a citizen of the Russian Federation. Again, no one noticed it, and no obstacles to Andrei Matyukha's business development in Ukraine.

How Favbet continues to be present in Belarus

In May 2022, Favbet also claimed that from March 1, 2022, Favbet stopped operating in Belarus and that in this country the bookmaker, site, office, and license were completely closed in this country. " But at the same time in Belarus still operates LLC "Favbetbel", which registered in this country four FAVBET trademarks, three of which are valid until 2028 and 2029. The same firm received a license for bookmaker in Belarus until February 14, 2024.

The founders of Favbetbel LLC to date, according to the Belarusian registers, continues to be personally Andrey Matyukha, as well as his British company Andalidi Invest Ltd, in which he was founded by the founder and director by the fall of 2022, and after he rewrote the firm on his partner Valery Sokola. The director of Favbetbel LLC is a citizen of Belarus Maxim Starichenko, who in 2021 Matyukha prescribed a notarial power of attorney for presenting his interests in Belarus for a term of 2024.

So, whether such a "pure" and "transparent" new "leader" of the Gambling Gambling Market of Ukraine Favbet, as it is called today some media, that Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, NSDCs, executive power and gambling regulation commission and lottery do not respond to a number of issues. And this is the evasion of taxes of a whole group of companies, which from year to year demonstrate the state losses, illegal bookmakers for two years without a license, the presence of current trademarks and firms in Russia and Belarus. Why does all this Ukrainian state pass by the ears in relation to Favbet and have not missed a number of other gambling operators in relation to a number of other gambling operators? Did the Ukrainian authorities have a favorite among the gambling business that you can not different?

PS by the way, the last three years Andrei Matyukha has not lived in Ukraine. According to BlackBox Osint, he has resided in Croatia since January 2022. During this time, he visited 25 countries, including Argentina, Israel, Saudi Arabia, USA, Qatar, Chile, Uruguay, UAE and Maldives. Matyukha never came to Ukraine during the war. It is interesting how he took shape in Croatia and what passport - as a Ukrainian refugee, can he still have any citizenship? Because the action of a foreign passport will ever end, and as you know, the Ukrainian embassies and consulates do not renew more documents to the evaders.