Casino feeders: how Favbet and Slot City "milked" Ukraine’s state bank with former official Inna Tyutyun and businessman Oleksiy Stupak

12:00, 15 января 2025

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Since mid-December 2024, Ukraine’s state bank has been at the heart of a major scandal involving manipulations with payment processing fees for the largest casinos in the country.

It was revealed that former official Inna Tyutyun and businessman Oleksiy Stupak devised a scheme through which millions of hryvnias vanish from the budget every day.

Previously, casinos like Favbet, Slotoking, and Slot City paid fees ranging from 1.5% to 1.7% of their turnover. However, since December, the bank unexpectedly lowered the fee to 1.3%, which at first glance might seem like a beneficial move for business. In reality, it turned out that this difference only enriches intermediaries. According to insider information, 0.1% of all transactions are transferred to Oleksiy Stupak through a chain of intermediaries.

The volumes are staggering: with a daily casino turnover of 300 million hryvnias, a 0.1% fee amounts to 300,000 hryvnias daily. In a month, this sum reaches 9 million hryvnias! As a result, the bank loses 18 million hryvnias monthly, which is equivalent to nearly 400,000 USD.

The situation is causing real shock in the banking environment. Employees and board members of the bank are rumored to be well aware of what is happening but prefer to remain silent.

"This is pure looting," says one anonymous source. "They are stealing money from the state bank during the war, fully confident in their impunity."

The scheme that enriches odious figures by millions not only harms the state’s system but also raises questions about the transparency of the bank’s operations and its management. In wartime conditions, when every hryvnia should go to support the country, such machinations appear as mockery of society.

So far, official representatives of the bank remain silent, but pressure from the public and anti-corruption bodies will inevitably force them to respond. Will the case be brought to court or will it be "hushed up" again? The question remains open.