The bookmaker Favbet, owned by Andriy Matyukha, who holds a Russian passport, operated without a license in Ukraine and continues to maintain business in Russia
The betting company Favbet, which denies ever operating in Russia, still holds a valid trademark there, while in Belarus, a company owns three active trademarks.
This is reported in an investigation by BlackBox OSINT regarding the activities of Andriy Matyukha’s company.
According to data from the Moscow patent office, the Favbet trademark with international registration is currently active in Russia. It was registered personally by the owner of the Favbet group of companies, Andriy Matyukha, in March 2020, and its validity expires on March 3, 2030. Additionally, another older Favbet trademark has been registered in Russia since June 2014 until December 30, 2024 — meaning that for three years of full-scale war, it has not been annulled.
Journalists remind that it was due to an active trademark in Russia that in the spring of 2023, the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine imposed sanctions on another well-known bookmaker, Parimatch, and the Supreme Court confirmed the accuracy of this information when considering Parimatch’s lawsuit against the online edition "RBC-Ukraine". Thus, investigators emphasize that this could be grounds for imposing sanctions on Favbet, which, in addition to the active trademark in Russia, still has three active trademarks in Belarus. In Belarus, the company "Favbetbel" continues to operate, which registered them, and Andriy Matyukha remains a co-founder of this company. Moreover, until February 14, 2024, Favbet had a license for betting activities in Belarus.
Additionally, as journalists discovered, the Favbet group of companies should have faced criminal liability for conducting illegal betting activities in Ukraine until December 2022 — it was only then that the LLC "Bookmaker Company ’Favbet’" received a betting license for the site favbet.ua and paid a fee of 108 million, but before that, it continued to operate illegally through the unlicensed site favbet.com. This is confirmed by a letter from the Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries to Favbet dated January 25, 2022, in which it demanded that the bookmaker cease the operation of the site favbet.com in Ukraine.
Also, as noted in a public investigation BlackBox OSINT, most of the Favbet group companies in Ukraine, which now hold five simultaneous licenses from the KRAIL, regularly report losses to the tax authorities. For example, LLC "Favorit Casino Company," which operates a casino in the Mercure Kyiv Congress Hotel, demonstrates negative profit annually: in 2022, the company’s loss amounted to 91 million UAH, in 2023 — 96 million UAH, and in 2024, a loss of 29 million UAH was also reported for two quarters.
LLC "Favbet Game Slots," which has a license for Favbet slot machine halls, also reports losses even with increasing annual revenues: regardless of the annual income, the company’s net profit consistently amounts to approximately the same figure of 30 million UAH. This, according to investigators, indicates the minimization of Favbet’s tax obligations and tax evasion.
It is also noted that Favbet owner Andriy Matyukha has been in Croatia since January 2022 and has not returned even once during the three years of full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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