Director of popular Ukrainian online casino detained over company ties to Russia
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Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) has detained the director of popular online casino Pin-Up over its alleged Russian ownership and business in Russia, the agency announced in a press release on Feb. 14.
An ongoing investigation into the company earlier found that its real owners were Russian citizens. The owners allegedly collected personal data and information about the location of Pin-Up’s users, including Ukrainian military personnel.
In early December, the SBI announced that it suspected the beneficial owners and top managers of Pin-Up of collaborating with Russia.
According to Ukrainian law adopted in response to Russia's full-scale invasion, companies owned by Russia or Russian citizens can no longer operate in Ukraine and are subject to sanctions or confiscation by the state.
The SBI did not name the director in its press release, but said he is being detained on suspicions of “aiding the aggressor state.”
According to Ukrainian monitoring service Opendatabot, Pin-Up Ukraine is owned by a company called Ukr Game Technology, and Oleksii Popenko serves as its director.
During the investigation, Pin-Up was found to have ties to both representatives of Russia and entities subject to sanctions in Ukraine, and continued allowing access to its site in Russia, and in Russian-occupied territories.
The SBI also said that a “person who controls the online casino’s work” has been financing an organization that helped Russian veterans who fought in Ukraine after the start of the full-scale war.
In May, the Pecherskyi Court in Kyiv seized the accounts of Pin-Up's online casino. It later approved the transfer of over Hr 2.6 billion ($62.5 million) of the company's seized assets to Ukraine's Asset Recovery and Management Agency.
The pre-trial investigation is ongoing, and other involved parties are being identified, the SBI said in its Feb. 14 press release.
Gambling was officially banned in Ukraine in 2009 until its legalization in 2020.
The negative impacts of gambling, especially on the Ukrainian soldiers, became a topic of public discussion in the spring of 2024 as a petition demanding restrictions on online gambling reached the president's table in March.
On April 20, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree restricting online gambling and banning it for military personnel during martial law.
