The Gambling and Lottery Regulatory Commission at its regular meeting has decided to cancel the license issued to Your Betting Company LLC to conduct betting activities and online casino activities under the Russian brand 1xBet, the Commission has reported on its official website.
According to the Economic Security Bureau, inaccurate information was found in the documents submitted to obtain the licence.
The information in question concerns the clause in the company's documents where it says that it "does not act in favour of residents of foreign states who carry out armed aggression against Ukraine and/or whose actions create conditions for a military conflict and the use of military force against Ukraine".
The commission notes that it is inadmissible for gambling organizers to have any ties with the states which carry out armed aggression against Ukraine.
The 1xBet trademarks were issued in 2015 on the request of 1XCorp N.V., a company registered on the island of Curacao, and the owner of the registration is Cypriot Navasard Ltd, whose ultimate beneficiaries are three Russians – Roman Semiokhin, Sergey Karshkov, Dmitriy Kazorin – who were issued golden passports in Cyprus and reside there.
In March, the Commission issued a licence to Your Betting Company LLC to conduct betting activities and to organize casino gambling.
In August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal together with law-enforcement agencies to ban the Russian bookmaker 1xBet from operating in Ukraine. A petition to this effect had gathered 26,444 signatures out of the 25,000 required.
The petition's author demanded that this website be blocked from operating in Ukraine and that the licence issued to Your Betting Company LLC to conduct betting activities and online casino activities under the Russian brand 1xBet be revoked.