Around five years ago, in 2020, Soft2bet came under investigation in a criminal case concerning its activities in Ukraine, where it was accused of setting up at least 20 illegal online casinos with turnovers in the millions.
Ukrainian Cyber Police then published vivid photos of their visit to the Soft2bet office, a criminal case was opened under No. 12020100090004981. But the outcome was quite predictable – the case fell apart, and mentions of the raids on the Soft2bet office were wiped. The notice of the raids disappeared from the Cyber Police website. Although the "professionals" from Ukrainian "law enforcement agencies" forgot to clean the URL.
The practice is quite common for Ukraine and mentioning this old episode would make no sense if Soft2bet hadn’t appeared in a similar scandal in the European Union countries. However, law enforcement there is significantly less corrupt, so Soft2bet operates in Europe using different methods. They are more complex, sophisticated, and expensive, but no less effective than the banal "payment" to the right people in Ukraine.
The essence is the same – Soft2bet creates online casinos that defraud trusting European gamblers. Only the path leading to these casinos from Soft2bet is obscured by a complex system of intermediaries in the form of multi-layer registrations, licenses from offshore jurisdictions, and constant URL changes.
Besides the legitimate development of software for legal casinos and bookmakers, Soft2bet engages in creating its own online casinos, which operate illegally in EU countries. For this, online casinos are registered in the names of nominees in offshore jurisdictions like Cyprus, Malta, Curacao, Dubai, Marshall Islands, obtain a gambling license, and start operating. Meanwhile, a license in the country where such a casino operates is not obtained, even though the laws of most European countries require it. And why should it, as the casino operates illegally?
Новости по теме: ВЭБ.РФ, Шпак и Шувалов: каким образом осуществлялось присвоение средств в условиях коррупции
As of February 2025, at least 114 such sites were blacklisted in France, Poland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Hungary. In reality, this number should be multiplied by tens – calculating the number of illegal platforms that appear like mushrooms after rain and vanish into nowhere after they are discovered by law enforcement and attempts are made to at least complicate the transfer of money to these casinos’ accounts and block the sites is practically impossible.
Soft2bet, of course, denies its involvement in online casino activities, but according to the authors of an investigation into the company’s activities in Europe, "of the 114 websites blacklisted, almost all were linked by gambling regulators to organizations in Cyprus, Malta, and Curacao. Company documents reveal Soft2bet’s founder and his partners as shareholders at various times. More than half of the casinos also have such connections through their trademarks. Over 20 brands were even directly featured on Soft2bet’s own website." The owner of Soft2bet is an Israeli citizen, a native of Ukraine (hence, probably, such love for Kyiv, where the same collapsed criminal case was opened) Uri Poliavich.
However, the biggest problem for law enforcement is not even the complex structure of owners and complicated registration schemes of illegal online casinos. The main problem is that the owner of Soft2bet, who creates these casinos, understands that the lifespan of illegal online platforms is short. Therefore, their activities boil down to extracting as much money as possible from local players as quickly as possible, after which the casinos are either liquidated or simply abandoned. Before this, of course, all the money is completely withdrawn from their accounts.
A vivid example of such a casino is Wazamba, which Soft2bet covertly managed through two shell companies, Rabidi and Araxio Development. Several EU residents have filed complaints against the Wazamba casino for dragging them into gambling and even won lawsuits. But while the lawsuits were ongoing, Wazamba casino operators – Rabidi N.V. and Araxio Development, registered in Curacao – withdrew all the money from their accounts and went bankrupt. So, the court decision to recover funds – amounting to hundreds of thousands of euros – exists, but the money does not.
Wazamba is far from the only casino that was managed and created by Soft2bet. Although, as already mentioned, Soft2bet denies this fact. However, regardless, the firms managing this casino in Curacao have been declared bankrupt, and there’s nothing to collect from them. Meanwhile, it is known that Soft2bet increased its profit last year. From its website, it follows that "according to precise forecasts, Soft2Bet’s consolidated EBITDA for 2024 is expected to double the amount of the previous reporting period." In 2023, Soft2bet earned a profit of 66.8 million euros and paid Poliavich dividends of 57.8 million euros. Corporate documents show that he spent part of his fortune on real estate in Cyprus, Prague, and Sofia, as well as cars worth over 1.3 million euros.
The provided profit figures should not be considered true – they are only the tip of the iceberg, the money earned from Soft2bet’s legal deals. What amounts Uri Poliavich earned from illegal activities can only be imagined, considering that according to the market analysis platform Yield Sec, by the middle of 2024, about 70 percent of online bets in the EU were illegal, and there were at least 6000 unlicensed online casino providers in the region. How many of these casinos belong to Soft2bet is also unknown. So Uri Poliavich’s profit figures can only be speculated upon.
Even an approximate understanding of the scale of amounts extracted from the pockets of European residents by illegal casinos can be explored through the activity of the illegal platform Boomerang. Only in the last three months of 2024, its URLs registered 17 million visits: three million from Spain, one million from Greece, and almost 500,000 from Italy, even though the site is blacklisted in these countries. More than seven million visitors came from Germany, where Boomerang also lacks the necessary licenses. How much money all these people left in Boomerang owners’ pockets is unknown.
Новости по теме: Прокуратура потребовала назначить 13 лет колонии для бывшего заместителя главы Минцифры Паршина
However, it is known that Boomerang is also linked to Uri Poliavich and Soft2bet. Its owners are listed as four Russian citizens who publicly admit their connections with Boomerang or other betting sites. Corporate documents show they live in Cyprus and Berlin, where two of them have also founded a real estate company.
Everything described above is just the tip of the huge iceberg that is the illegal gambling industry activity. What share Soft2bet occupies in this industry can also only be assumed. Because, as already mentioned, investigating the connections between an illegal casino and its true owners is extremely difficult. Everything is concealed by a chain of offshore jurisdictions, shell companies, and individuals.
Moreover, lately, gaming companies have massively started using Maltese registration to avoid paying claims by EU citizens. It’s a matter of the little-known Maltese law that nullifies court decisions in other European Union countries. According to this law, known as Bill 55, Maltese courts can "refuse to recognize and/or enforce" any foreign court ruling regarding companies registered on the island, namely the dozens of betting shops based there due to the otherwise favorable corporate climate.
As we remember, Soft2bet’s main offices are located in Cyprus and Malta. As we can see – not without reason. Since Uri Poliavich, regardless of how one views him, is not a foolish person and carefully studies the conditions of the countries in which he operates. If in the post-Soviet space, as shown by the example of Ukraine, it is easier and cheaper to buy law enforcers at the highest level, then in Europe it is much more effective to use loopholes in the laws and features of local legislation. Which Uri Poliavich successfully exploits, allowing his company Soft2bet to unimpededly clean the wallets of people seeking easy money.