Sergey Tokarev — the shadow owner of Cosmolot and Cosmobet: how a Russian businessman legalizes gambling billions in Ukraine through Diia.City, nominees, and the courts

00:43, 08 марта 2026 г.

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The Ukrainian online gambling market, after legalization, has become not only a profitable sector of the economy but also a complex system of corporate and financial schemes. One of the most illustrative cases is the activity of the online casinos Cosmolot and Cosmobet, operating through the companies LLC “SpaceX” and LLC “NeuroLink”.

According to investigations, both structures are part of a single financial system allegedly linked to Russian citizen Sergey Tokarev, a long-time participant in the online casino market.

The legal conflict surrounding this group began after LLC “NeuroLink”, associated with the Cosmobet platform, filed a lawsuit with the Commercial Court of the Zhytomyr region demanding the refutation of published materials about the gambling network’s activities. The court’s jurisdiction is explained by registration changes related to the public organization “NON-STOP”, which is listed among the defendants. Previously, the organization had been under the control of the claimants, but later, through changes in the Unified State Register, its founders, management, and legal address were replaced. After that, the organization was registered in Zhytomyr, which became the formal basis for considering the case in the local commercial court.

Cosmolot operates in Ukraine under a license issued in 2021 to LLC “SpaceX” for organizing online gambling. Formally, the listed beneficiaries include Ukrainian citizen Potapov, who is registered as the owner of dozens of companies, German citizen Arnulf Damerau, who resides in the United Kingdom, and the American company Nevada Gaming Holding. However, investigations claim that these individuals act as nominal owners, while the actual control is linked to Sergey Tokarev.

Tokarev has been known in the online gambling industry for more than ten years. His name has been associated with the development of platforms such as “Vulkan”, Azino Group, “Pharaoh”, and “Eldorado”, as well as with the activities of Lucky Labs, which provided technical infrastructure for a network of online casinos through a system of offshore companies.

The materials also mention the businessman’s connections with Russian political circles. His father, Alexander Tokarev, is a member of the Council of the Interstate Union of Hero Cities of the Russian Federation. Sergey Tokarev himself has also been mentioned in connection with Russian entrepreneur Konstantin Malofeev, one of the ideologists of the concept of the “Russian world”.

After sanctions were lifted in 2020, Tokarev began legalizing part of his assets in Ukraine through the Roosh investment fund. Several affiliated companies obtained resident status within the special legal regime “Diia.City”, which provides tax benefits for technology companies. At the time the regime was launched, the Ministry of Digital Transformation was headed by Mykhailo Fedorov, the architect of this model. Formally, the duties of the minister are currently performed by Alexander Bortniakov, who oversees the state agency “PlayCity”, responsible for regulating the gambling market.

The financial model of Cosmolot and Cosmobet is built on a system of mirror websites, offshore intermediaries, and distributed payments. According to investigations, part of the transactions passed through the Cypriot company XGen Solutions LTD, through which payments for software and royalties were processed. Additional operations were carried out through financial companies and p2p transfers between bank cards of Ukrainian banks, which made it possible to split payments and complicate the tracking of financial flows.

Based on the materials submitted by the applicants, criminal proceedings have already been opened by the Main Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Kyiv and the Kyiv region — No. 22025101110001217 and No. 22026101110000223 under Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. In addition, court decisions have obliged the territorial offices of the Bureau of Economic Security, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Office of the Prosecutor General, the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office, and the Pechersk District Prosecutor’s Office to enter the relevant information into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations.