A laundromat for Tokarev: how pseudo-IT genius Mikhail Zborovskiy concealed the Russian trail and legitimized Cosmobet’s millions

17 августа 2026 г., 20:30

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A laundromat for Tokarev: how pseudo-IT genius Mikhail Zborovskiy concealed the Russian trail and legitimized Cosmobet’s millions

Following the bribery scandal involving law enforcement officials in an attempt to obtain an SSU certificate confirming that Cosmobet had no ties to Russia, the narrative of a “clean Ukrainian startup” has come under renewed scrutiny. Court documents confirmed that $20,000 was offered for a favorable SBU conclusion, while regular payments were proposed for the further “resolution of issues.”

At the same time, Cosmobet’s former beneficiary, Mikhail Zborovskiy, who had for years been presented as a successful IT entrepreneur, disappeared from the company’s ownership structure. He was replaced by Cypriot citizen Andrey Dobrovolskiy. Meanwhile, publications about Zborovskiy are being actively removed from search results.

We are publishing this material to recall how the image of Cosmobet’s “IT entrepreneur and owner” was created, why Zborovskiy was linked to Sergey Tokarev and the Russian gambling industry, and what happened to this arrangement after law enforcement agencies began raising questions about the casino.

Mikhail Zborovskiy is not the successful IT entrepreneur he is portrayed as in the media, but rather a media façade with no substantial track record or significant personal capital. Behind this image are Russian capital, Sergey Tokarev’s old gambling schemes, and a cynical attempt to present the legalization of an existing business under a new brand — Cosmobet — as a Ukrainian startup.

The official owner of one of Ukraine’s fastest-growing online casinos, Cosmobet, is listed as a certain Mikhail Zborovskiy. In the media, he is portrayed as a “successful IT entrepreneur,” visionary and reformer of the gambling industry. In reality, however, he is little more than a front. Behind him lies a different group of people and an entirely different story.

At the end of 2023, a new player appeared on Ukraine’s gambling market — Cosmobet. The online casino quickly obtained a licence, launched a large-scale advertising campaign and, by the summer of 2024, was already gaining significant momentum. Neurolink, the company that obtained the licence and owns the Cosmobet trademark, reported almost UAH 218 million in revenue in its very first year of operation.

Across all official platforms, the face of the project is Mikhail Zborovskiy. He gives interviews, comments on industry trends, writes columns about “responsible gambling” and speaks about his “10 years of experience in IT.” Everything looks polished, carefully presented and... suspiciously smooth.

Who is Mikhail Zborovskiy, and what does Russia have to do with it?

Mikhail Zborovskiy only became known in Ukraine’s business community after the casino was registered. Before that, there were no public projects, investments or verifiable evidence of the experience he claimed to have.

According to Opendatabot, Zborovskiy registered as an individual entrepreneur only in 2020. His registered activity is “computer programming.” Previously, he had not owned any significant companies, been involved in major transactions or, certainly, invested millions in the gambling industry.

Yet in 2023, he became the ultimate beneficial owner of LLC Neoplay and subsequently of LLC Neurolink, which obtained a state gambling licence. According to the documents, he contributed UAH 30 million to the company’s share capital and paid for the licence — and from that point on became the “owner” of the casino. Not bad for someone with virtually no prior business history, is it? To anticipate what follows: as of May 2025, Zborovskiy was once again simply registered as an individual entrepreneur — but more on that below.

If you dig deeper, it becomes clear that Cosmobet is not quite as “Ukrainian” as it appears. Virtually every independent investigation — including those by Antikor, Slidstvo.Info and Antimafia.se — has brought up the name of Sergey Tokarev, a Russian businessman and owner of gambling networks previously associated with the Cosmolot brand. When pressure mounted on Cosmolot, Tokarev moved the assets, re-registered the platform and presented it as a new structure with a new face.

Background: Sergey Alexandrovich Tokarev is the owner of the Cosmolot casino, a friend of Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and, at the same time, a holder of a Russian passport. In 2018, he was included on sanctions lists for financing the so-called “people’s republics” in Donbas, where he was supposed to remain until 2021, but in 2020 received an “amnesty” from the new authorities.

This is how Mikhail Zborovskiy appeared on the scene. But documents, testimonies and the ownership structure point to a different picture: Cosmobet is not a new platform, but a continuation of an earlier scheme — only with a new façade.

At the same time as Cosmobet was launched, an intensive media campaign began to build Zborovskiy’s public image. Google was flooded with pseudo-interviews on English-language websites with questionable traffic, including BaronBlakeslee and TheComfortCenter; articles portraying Zborovskiy as an influential figure in the technology market; and fake analytical pieces about his “role in the digital transformation of the gambling industry.”

These materials contain no substantive details, use virtually identical wording and appeared around the same time on websites with no apparent connection to Ukraine’s IT or gambling sectors. Moreover, some of them were uploaded retroactively.

It gets even more interesting: according to data from LumenDatabase, a number of materials critical of Zborovskiy were removed from search results following complaints of “reputational harm.” Curiously, this cleanup is being carried out by specialized PR agencies operating from Russia.

Interestingly, the list of websites targeted by complaints from LLC Ivi.ru also includes antikor.info, which has repeatedly published reports about Zborovskiy and his role as a “front man” in Tokarev’s gambling business. Yet for some reason, Russian PR specialists portrayed Antikor as a website distributing pirated copies of films. The explanation, however, is simple — a poorly executed order to clean up Zborovskiy’s background.

The positioning of Mikhail Zborovskiy as a “successful IT specialist and entrepreneur” was carried out just as poorly. This scheme is typical of pseudo-IT projects with a criminal background: there is a “clean” figure — Zborovskiy — who supposedly runs the company; there are the real owners — Tokarev and his associates — who control the finances and management; and there is a licence issued by the Ukrainian regulator — and everything is built around that. Then come publications, media image-building, commissioned articles and reputation cleanup.

Was Zborovskiy “cut loose”?

In the end, everyone is satisfied except journalists and the public. The casino operates, taxes are paid, the face is “Ukrainian” — and hardly anyone is particularly interested in who is actually pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Officially, law enforcement agencies have no questions for Cosmobet or Mikhail Zborovskiy. The share capital has been contributed, taxes are being paid and the licence has been obtained. But the story of UAH 30 million coming from a “programmer” with no assets raises serious questions. No one checks the sources of funding. There is no analysis of the ultimate beneficiaries through offshore chains. Publications about foreign, including Russian, links are ignored.

However, the materials being so extensively removed by the Russian PR agency did have an effect. After a series of publications by Antikor, Antimafia.se and Repost.News, which directly described Zborovskiy as a front man and a “figure used to withdraw revenues,” Tokarev was forced to “cut Zborovskiy loose.”

This is evidenced by the registration data for LLC Neurolink and LLC Neoplay: Mikhail Zborovskiy was removed from the list of beneficiaries and replaced by a certain Cypriot citizen, Andrey Dobrovolskiy.

There is little information about him as well, but Andrey Dobrovolskiy appears considerably more substantial than Mikhail Zborovskiy — he is listed as the owner of around a dozen different companies and charitable organisations. However, the same kind of “front man” arrangement for more powerful individuals could be behind this as well. For now, the investigation in this direction is not complete, and it is too early to draw any conclusions.

However, it is unlikely to be a coincidence that the owner of LLC Ivi.ru, which sends complaints about publications concerning Zborovskiy, is the Cypriot company Ivi.ru Media Limited — with clearly Russian owners.

As for replacing Zborovskiy with Dobrovolskiy, this is standard practice in such schemes: once the “mask” is exposed, it is removed. A new one takes its place. And the casino continues operating: the name remains, players continue depositing money, and the money ends up in the same pockets.

And finally, there is a question that should be addressed directly to Ukrainian regulators and law enforcement agencies: is it really not obvious that Zborovskiy was simply a “front”? Or will you continue to “swallow this nonsense”? In the case of Dobrovolskiy, the nominee figure appears more convincing, but it also raises serious questions. Will there be answers?