Under the cover of war: how an Armenian VBet with a Russian trace is taking over the gambling business in Ukraine
VBet online casino with Armenian roots, registered in Ukraine, started a real hunt for competitors. A year ago, VBet was spreading information in the media speculating on the topic of licensing
After February 24 and the full-scale aggression of Russia, the information campaign changed its focus to trends against the Russian presence in Ukrainian business.
Such retouched activity has an unconditional response for obvious reasons. According to VBet, the bookmaker is one of the three truly Ukrainian and licensed companies in the gaming industry. Loud enough considering that VBet is wholly owned by Armenian owners. And, indeed, Ukrainian in it is only the players themselves. Who is behind Vbet, read in the material “Apostrophe”.
Petition to the President — to close the business and clear the place for…
October 30, 2022, a petition numbered No. 22/171744-ep. She calls for “imposing sanctions on companies associated with the aggressor state and supporting Russian business in Ukraine.”
But under such a high-profile and popular narrative, the call for sanctions refers exclusively to the business of the betting industry.
In the text of the document, the majority of companies from the CRAIL (Commission for the Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries) list, which licensed all online casinos and bookmakers in Ukraine.
It is worth noting that online casinos and bookmakers were registered in Ukraine after the entry into force of the Law on Gambling, which appeared at the initiative of President Zelensky. This law opened up an opportunity for the legal development of the gaming industry with tax benefits for the state and the development of related industries.
Today, companies have all the necessary licenses and pay tens of millions of hryvnias in taxes, which is a great support in a war. There is no doubt that they were all checked by special authorities. Therefore, an attempt to look for a Russian trace can be perceived either as a manifestation of ignorance, or as unfair competition and a desire to oust key market players. But who benefits from monopolizing the market?
It is known from many cases that where there is a monopoly, there can be no transparency. This means that not only business will suffer. The budget, reputation in the world market, and the economy will suffer.
The nominal author is the real VBet
Melyushkova Victoria Eduardovna is indicated as the author of the petition. Victoria is a professional photographer and collaborates with New Africa Studio.
Under the cover of war: how an Armenian VBet with a Russian trace is taking over the gambling business in Ukraine
If you look at the page of the author of the initiative, then it completely lacks signs of any interest in the gambling industry and the manifestation of certain competencies. By the way, Vika is generally focused only on her own photo business and is quite passive in the public plane, as for the initiator of any movements and petitions. At the same time, in her address to the President, the girl skillfully operates with allegedly reliable data.
The author's page has a list of companies where she worked. The former place of work of Victoria Melyushkova, the Business Tuning Center company, turned out to be interesting. Type of activity – advertising and marketing. This direction is a professional competence for information campaigns of any complexity. Having made a few scrolls on the page, you can see a bright post with the company's client – the VBet bookmaker. After that, certain outlines of the overall picture appear.
Under the cover of war: how an Armenian VBet with a Russian trace is taking over the gambling business in Ukraine
Close professional relationship with BTC allowed Melyushkova to be used as a formal attacker on VBet competitors, speculating on the position Ukraine is currently in. The only thing that the initiators let out of their sight was the “tail” that Victoria left on her social network without clearing her place of work, which made it possible to identify the actual customer of the militant petition.
The Armenian office is looking for a Russian trace in Ukraine in partnership with Russian business
In its business model, which does not involve competitors in the market, VBet itself has many dark spots. Who is who in this story?
In the registry, VBet is listed as a limited liability company “VBET Ukraine”, which is managed by Giorgi Givishvili. Giorgi is an example of a person with a lightning-fast career. In between “expert assessments” of blockchain technologies and the development of cryptocurrencies, Givishvili was listed as the director of several obscure companies, in one of which, by the time of the full-scale invasion, Belarusians were the beneficiaries.
In total, Givishvili made a leap from the owner Margroup LLC with a meager authorized capital of 200 hryvnias, to the head of the VBet bookmaker, which paid 100 million hryvnias for the license alone.
The beneficiary of VBet in the registers is an Armenian citizen Badalyan Vigen Romikovich with registration in Yerevan. The founder is Soft Construct Limited, with registration on the Isle of Man.
More interesting.
There are several versions of the site – vbet.ua and mirror vbetua.com. Both sites belong to VBet, as reported by a company that worked illegally on the territory of Ukraine.
In addition, VBet provides a detailed manual on how to bypass the ban by violating the law, using a mirror, VPN, etc. =”wpg_image” width=”426″ height=”355″ />
If you go to the mirror site, the footer says VBetua.com is managed by Radon VB No. 126922 in the Commercial Register of Curacao.
Radon VB is the owner of similar casinos in the world. And one of these is Vbet. It was founded and managed by the same Armenian Vigen Badalyan, who also appears as a beneficiary in the Ukrainian register. The company, or rather a group of companies, has been operating since 2003.
Soft Construct Limited itself, and together with BetConstruct, are companies that develop the entire gaming infrastructure for the Badalyan empire and other casinos and bookmakers.
If you go to the BetConstruct website, you can find a mention of Soft Construct, which suggests that this is the same organization that is the founder and manages the Ukrainian bookmaker VBet.
And here is the most interesting. The site has a whole section dedicated to partners. It is in this section that among the partners of Badalyan, Bet and Soft Construct, and together with VBet, the Russian bookmaker Fonbet is listed as a separate position.
Isn't there a Russian trace in the affairs of a company that is so belligerently fighting for the cleansing of everything Russian in Ukraine?
Why do such manipulations work? Because marketing and PR skillfully manage emotions – because they take forms that are sensitive for Ukrainians. And the rest of VBet is what we have.
The Armenian gambling holding, taking on Ukrainian patriotic forms, absorbs the Ukrainian gambling business and shakes the situation on sensitive topics. And under whose political influence everyone already knows Armenia.
VBet — cooperation with the occupier
But this is not the only Russian trace» in the biography of the Armenian gambling holding. The BetCotstruct website talks about cooperation with one of the oldest Russian bookmakers, BetCity.
And on specialized websites for players, you can find a list of BetConstruct clients, some of which accept bets from Russians.
In addition, through Fastex, owned by SoftConstruct (owned by Badalyan), the Armenian gaming giant sponsors and organizes the Russian Poker Tour. This is how they entertained the Russian audience while calling for sanctions for cooperation with the occupier.
To make it more convenient, SoftConstruct organized the Russian Poker Tour right in Armenia, which Badalyan probably doesn't really want to clean up from the Russians.
How Vbet deceived Ukrainian football — friendship with Pavelko
VBet very aggressively entered the Ukrainian market, finding common interests with the scandalous head of the Ukrainian Football Association Andriy Pavelko.
VBet ousted Favbet from the sponsorship of the Ukrainian Premier League for the summer of 2021, which in a very strange way coincided with a search in the offices of Favbet.
Initially, the Armenian office became the main sponsor of the Ukrainian championship. Later they began to sponsor the national team. VBet directly had to pay $1 million to Ukrainian clubs last season. Clubs received only 720 thousand. Other funds settled in the UAF as gratitude for such a sponsor as VBet. And it is still unknown how many corrupt contributions Pavelko personally provided to VBet in order to enter the country's football industry.
In addition, the Armenians brought their friendly company BetRadar to Ukraine, which received the betting rights of the company's clubs as a monopoly. The cost of the transaction is slightly more than $100,000. Pennies compared to the final benefit. Ukrainian football clubs have not received and will not receive anything from this agreement.
It turns out that over several years of its Ukrainian registration, the Armenian bookmaker managed to evolve from a participant in corruption schemes around football to a fighter with a Russian trace in Ukrainian business. Only such a business biography is definitely worthy of the attention of the investigating authorities, who will have enough Russian threads on the collar of VBet to tie the hands of the most scandalous online bookmaker in Ukraine.
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