FSB in betting: “Diamond Pay”, Favbet and Andriy Matyukha’s shadow billions
In February 2025, the Dnipropetrovsk Economic Court considered a case about the withdrawal of funds from gambling through the payment system "Diamond Pay". Its key feature is that the traces lead to Russian special services, which control a significant part of Ukraine’s gambling market.
At first glance, the case is ordinary – one of Ukraine’s bookmakers, namely Favbet owned by Andriy Matyukha, demands from "Diamond Pay", which was its payment operator, to recover 364,882,982 hryvnias as a fine for "Diamond Pay" violating the terms of the agreement on servicing Favbet’s accounts. In addition, Favbet demands 1,059,800 hryvnias as reimbursement for the paid court fee.
At first glance, nothing unusual: "Diamond Pay" was a company that serviced Ukraine’s gambling market until it lost its license in July of last year. It accepted money from gamblers into its accounts and then transferred it to the accounts of casinos or bookmakers where they lost their money. An ordinary intermediary. It would seem. But delving into the essence of the case raises more questions than answers.
What is "Diamond Pay"
For starters, a brief note: LLC "Diamond Pay" was practically a monopolist in the market of payment services for casinos – at the end of 2023, 70% of all gaming payments went through it. By the time it lost its license, this share had grown to almost 90%. But in this case, what’s important is not even that, but that "Diamond Pay" lost its license because it helped the Russian Pin-UP and Vbet, which operated freely in Ukraine’s gaming market for several years, to withdraw almost three billion hryvnias blocked after losing their licenses.
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After the accounts of Pin-UP and Vbet were blocked, "Diamond Pay" continued to accept money from players for these bookmakers, without informing the players about the impossibility of placing a bet. After Pin-UP and Vbet opened new accounts for themselves, "Diamond Pay" transferred the accumulated funds from its accounts to the new accounts of Pin-UP and Vbet. The Prosecutor General’s Office pretended not to notice anything.
After that, a scandal erupted, and it turned out that "Diamond Pay" is connected to Russia. Despite official data that LLC "Diamond Pay" supposedly belongs to Ukrainian citizens, its owner is Maksym Sigalov, who also owns the payment system "E-pay", which in 2014-16 serviced pro-Russian bandit formations in the "LNR". And Maksym Sigalov’s brother owns the online casino Inbet in Russia.
In fact, this was known even before the license revocation. But "Diamond Pay" was covered by KRAIL member Yevhen Yakhnіy, whose wife, sole proprietor Yakhnіy Liliya Serhiivna, received 800,000 hryvnias from LLC "Diamond Pay" to her accounts. And this was just on April 16, 2024. How much in total and how exactly the Yakhnіys received for their services from the Russian payment system "Diamond Pay" remains an open question. The Prosecutor General’s Office is also silent on this matter. As is the SBU. By the way, Mrs. Yakhnіy works in the Licensing Department of the NBU, which does not prevent her from moonlighting as an entrepreneur.
What is unusual about Matyukha’s lawsuit against "Diamond Pay"
After this whole story was revealed, LLC "Diamond Pay" lost its license. And therefore, the bookmakers it serviced had claims. So far, everything seems logical. In its lawsuit, Favbet (LLC "Bookmaker Company Favbet") against LLC "Diamond Pay" demands to recover from the latter "364,882,982.41 hryvnias in fine and 1,059,800.00 hryvnias - costs for paying the court fee". By the way, this demand was fully satisfied by the decision of the Dnipropetrovsk Economic Court on December 19, 2024.
But unexpectedly, another bookmaker – LLC "SpaceX" (brand Cosmolot) – appealed to the court. With a demand to reduce the fine amount by 500,000 thousand hryvnias. It would seem – what business is it of theirs? But – no, there is business. By the way, the BEB has claims against "SpaceX" regarding money laundering from the gaming business through Great Britain. How this is connected to Favbet, Andriy Matyukha, "Diamond Pay", Russian agent Yevhen Yakhnіy – is unclear. But the lawsuit exists.
The oddities do not end there. The most surprising thing here lies in the plaintiff itself - LLC "Bookmaker Company Favbet" and its owner Andriy Matyukha. Formally, LLC "Bookmaker Company Favbet" is a purely Ukrainian enterprise. It belongs to Matyukha Dmytro Andriyovych, who became the beneficiary of the company in December 2024, replacing Matyukha Andriy Valeriyovych.
This happened just when strange maneuvers around the fine for "Diamond Pay" began. How these events are connected is not entirely clear. But the reason for changing the beneficiary of the Favbet casino has an explanation. The fact is that right after Favbet received a license to operate in Ukraine, publications appeared claiming that its owner Andriy Matyukha is connected to Russians and, moreover, has Russian citizenship. A photo of the Russian Federation citizen passport of Matyukha Andriy Valeriyovych appeared online.
In addition, there were many materials about Andriy Matyukha’s connections with the Russian organized crime group "Luzhnikovskie", whose representative Boris Baum was one of the authors of the law on the legalization of gambling in Ukraine. Most materials have already been cleaned up, only traces remain. Here’s what a well-known blogger wrote about Andriy Matyukha and the Favbet outfit in April of last year. By the way, this post is accessible, link – here:
"Diamond Pay", Andriy Matyukha and shadow connections with the FSB: what stands behind the lawsuit for almost 365 million hryvnias?
And here’s the disappeared screenshot that the blogger mentions:
It is known that until 2014, Favbet operated in Russia under the brand "Favorit Sport", and specialized publications still include it in ratings, specifically noting that now "Favorit Sport" is Favbet.
In 2022, the publication delo.ua conducted an investigation, from which it followed that Favbet serves citizens of the Russian Federation without problems. And it detailed how it works. The material has already been cleaned up, but traces remain.
In 2019, Favbet appeared in the materials of criminal case No. 12016100040000990 regarding LLC "Lucky Land" on the fact of financing terrorists from the "DNR" and "LNR". After the change of power, the case stalled, and Favbet was among the first to receive a license for bookmaker activities in Ukraine.
There were other publications that linked Andriy Matyukha to Russia, its organized crime, and special services that control the gaming business there. Andriy Matyukha himself, of course, either denies everything or remains silent, while emphasizing his "assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine".
Be that as it may, Favbet continues to pump money out of Ukrainians’ pockets. No official charges have been brought against Andriy Matyukha. But in connection with the fact that his bookmaker was serviced by "Diamond Pay", whose connection to Russian special services no longer raises doubts in anyone, additional questions arise regarding Andriy Matyukha. The same questions, by the way, arise regarding other operators of the gaming market that were serviced there. And there were eight of them.
Returning to the lawsuit of Andriy Matyukha’s bookmaker Favbet against the company "Diamond Pay", through which payments went to Russia, it remains unclear what this is – an initiative of Andriy Matyukha himself, who decided to appropriate the temporarily ownerless money, or a command from his FSB curators, who do not wish to release from their tenacious hands almost ten million dollars hanging in uncertainty?