Soft2bet: dozens of blacklisted gambling sites connected to award-winning European firm

Posted by Admin March 6, 2025 Gambling

Glitzy offers and bonus bets lure in millions to online gambling every day. Yet behind the crafted promotions lies a different reality. One defined by unlicensed operations, offshore accounts and a growing public health crisis.

At the height of his addiction, Felix reckons he gambled away €400,000 over three years. “I spent every free minute on my mobile phone,” the 50-something-year-old German remembers. “I would play on the way to the park with my little girl in my hand. That’s how sick it was.”

His divorce and feelings of loneliness fuelled the habit. After squandering the proceeds from his house sale, he took out nine loans and cancelled his pension plans.

One online casino in particular preyed on his illness, he claims. In just six months, Felix (not his real name) lost €245,000 on Wazamba, a website that granted him “VIP status”, a loyalty programme where high spenders get a personal manager.

“I could play and then call them to get some money back to continue playing, they always give you credit straight away,” he says. “Those who run these casinos have stolen my life.”

Investigate Europe can reveal that Wazamba is part of a vast network of blacklisted gambling sites connected to Soft2bet, an award-winning betting group headquartered between Malta and Cyprus. In a statement sent to Investigate Europe, the company denied any wrongdoing.

“Our operations are conducted in full adherence to all applicable laws, regulations, and licensing conditions in every jurisdiction where we are authorized to operate,” the statement read.

The Soft2bet website showcases its work on ‘bespoke casino and sportsbook platforms’.

Unlicensed operations across Europe

Soft2bet itself is not a betting platform. A visit to its well-curated website shows a business that offers technology solutions to Europe’s multibillion-euro gambling industry and operates a modest portfolio of five betting brands.

But the company’s footprint runs much deeper. Investigate Europe has traced over 140 gambling websites back to Soft2bet. Most have been banned in parts of Europe for operating without a licence.

At least 114 of these sites are blacklisted in one EU country as of February 2025. France, Poland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Hungary are among them. The numbers are likely underestimated as blacklists are not exhaustive and large markets like Germany and the UK don’t publish any.

Yet Soft2bet’s involvement in the prohibited platforms was unknown until now. To unravel the network, Investigate Europe analysed scores of corporate documents, trademark registers and URL ownership databases. The paper trail links EU states to Curaçao, Dubai, Gibraltar and the Marshall Islands.

“The gambling industry exists as an iceberg marketplace. Above the waterline, the legal industry is highly visible – regulated, taxed, scrutinised. But it’s floating in a sea of criminality.”

— Ismail Vali of analytics firm Yield Sec

Among the 114 blacklisted websites, nearly all have been linked by gambling regulators to entities in Cyprus, Malta and Curaçao. Company filings seen by Investigate Europe disclose Soft2bet’s founder and his associates as shareholders at various points in time. More than half of the casinos also have such ownership connections via their trademarks. Over 20 brands have even featured directly on Soft2bet’s own website.

Moreover, regulators’ blacklists seem to have had little effect. Investigate Europe was able to open accounts on dozens of the banned websites around the continent. Many of the sites still attract millions of monthly visits, analysis of website traffic data shows.

Companies owned by Soft2bet’s founder and his associates, meanwhile, have actively promoted some of the platforms despite not having the licences to do so.

One of the biggest projects developed by Soft2bet is Boomerang, which authorities in at least six countries – including France, Italy, Spain and Greece – have classified as unauthorised. Regardless, Boomerang managed to strike a deal with AC Milan in July 2024 as its official regional betting partner in Europe. Boomerang has been blacklisted by Italian authorities since at least March 2025.

Italian football giant AC Milan unveiled Boomerang as its ‘regional betting partner’ in July 2024.

The sheer scale of such unlicensed operations, controlled from offshore jurisdictions and through a maze of ever-changing URLs, makes eradicating them an uphill battle, several European gambling regulators confessed.

Bankrupt shell companies

Fortunately for Felix, he was able to pursue Wazamba in the German courts. At the time, Soft2bet appears to have discreetly managed the casino via two shell corporations, Rabidi and Araxio Development. In 2022, Rabidi turned over €343 million. Both were based in Curaçao, the Caribbean tax haven notorious for its lax gambling regulations.

Judges ruled in 2023 that Rabidi, unlicensed in Germany, owed Felix all his losses back. Two years later, he is still waiting for the money, as are several other creditors.

Both Rabidi and Araxio were declared bankrupt in Curaçao following a number of similar lawsuits. Their assets, however, were safely relocated before the judgements. What was not known at the time was their relation to Soft2bet.

Founded in 2016, Soft2bet belongs to Uri Poliavich, an Israeli businessman living in Cyprus. The group employs more than 1,000 people and has won multiple industry accolades. Malta’s Economy Minister inaugurated its new offices last year.

Soft2bet turned a €66.8 million profit in 2023 and handed Poliavich a €57.8 million dividend. Corporate documents reveal that he spent some of his wealth on real estate in Cyprus, Prague and Sofia, as well as over €1.3 million worth of cars.

To help build up his empire, Poliavich – named “leader of the year” at an industry summit in 2024 – has partly relied on myriad blacklisted casinos and sports betting sites.

“We categorically deny the baseless allegations and misleading insinuations presented in your email.”

— Soft2bet

Investigate Europe and its partners addressed 25 questions to Soft2bet and Poliavich. In a statement, the company said: “Soft2bet is a leading online casino and sportsbook software provider, holding various licences worldwide. As a fully licenced and strictly regulated company, we take our compliance obligations and regulatory responsibilities with the utmost seriousness.

“We categorically deny the baseless allegations and misleading insinuations presented in your email. Any suggestion that Soft2bet engages in improper activities is entirely false, defamatory, and without merit. We reject the attempt to damage our reputation through unfounded accusations or irresponsible reporting.”

Boomerang brings in the visitors

Data from Similarweb, a web traffic aggregator, show that the unauthorised websites attract millions of visits each month in Europe, with Germany providing the majority of players.

Some of the blacklisted brands traced back to Soft2bet, like Wazamba, have been owned and operated by the company directly. Others were created by the group on behalf of customers as “turnkey casinos”.

Boomerang is one of the latter. Perhaps the network’s largest success, the sportsbook and casino platform became AC Milan’s official betting sponsor last year.

Its URLs recorded 17 million visits in the last three months of 2024: 3 million came from Spain, 1 million from Greece and nearly 500,000 from Italy, in spite of being blacklisted in those countries. Over 7 million were from Germany, where Boomerang doesn’t have the necessary licences either.

The trademark’s owners are four Russian nationals who publicly acknowledge their connections to Boomerang or other betting sites. Corporate filings show they live in Cyprus and Berlin, where two of them also set up a real estate company.

Investigate Europe tried to contact them via Boomerang, but they did not reply to requests for comments. AC Milan did not answer questions either.

As well as web traffic data, proof that blacklisted websites tied to Soft2bet are vying for European punters can be found in the group’s marketing materials.

Take the MyEmpire casino, for example. Its affiliate programme – a partnership promoting the brand with influencers – includes France, Italy, Greece, Poland and Hungary in its “target markets” despite being banned in those territories. To reach players all around Europe, Soft2bet has relied on several affiliate programmes, many of them managed via two Gibraltar entities.

The MyEmpire cassino affiliate programme targets several European markets where it does not hold national licences.

Offshore benefits

Most European governments require a local permit to offer online betting games on their markets. It helps them to control, tax and regulate a sector that has been tainted by addiction and money laundering concerns.

The Curacao licence which Soft2bet casinos held did not allow them to target a European audience. But it did afford them much needed secrecy.

“Curacao is the biggest and the oldest offshore gambling jurisdiction in the world,” explains Nardy Cramm, a Dutch investigative journalist. Her research estimates that up to 20,000 online gambling sites hail from the island, about 70 per cent of all casino URLs globally.

In 2019, Cramm started SBOK, a foundation assisting victims of illicit providers based in Curacao. She receives one or two complaints a day, some of them against Rabidi and Araxio. “We cannot help everybody because it’s simply too much,” she says.

Unlicensed casinos have boomed in recent years. During Covid-19, punters flocked online and with most sporting events on hold, many turned to more addictive virtual slots, some of which are unregulated.

“I think about suicide nine out of ten days. Thank god I don’t have a gun.”

— An anonymous player

One Finnish player, who asked to stay anonymous, told Investigate Europe how they lost €120,000 on Rabidi websites during the pandemic. One of the casinos, House of Spades, offered a €50 bonus when they tried to shut their account, the player claimed.

“I think about suicide nine out of ten days,” said the player, who amassed debts of €70,000. “Thank god I don’t have a gun.”

Juhani Ala-Kurikka, who was until recently a senior adviser to Finland’s Gambling Administration, says combating illegal operations is a thankless task. “The issue is that entities in Curacao are not cooperating. We don’t get any response to our letters and in some cases we don’t even know the actual address of the companies.”

Complex corporate structures

Soft2bet’s association to blacklisted platforms has remained in the shadows thanks largely to its intricate corporate formations.

Authorities have so far blamed the two Curacao shell companies without linking them to Soft2bet. Both Rabidi and Araxio received court judgments in Austria and Germany ordering them to reimburse players. In Spain Rabidi received a €5 million fine in connection to 25 “allegedly illegal” casinos. The Spanish regulator said the penalty remains to be paid.

Evidence that Soft2bet’s hand is behind them lies in Cyprus, where the company keeps its top holdings.

Soft2bet founder and CEO Poliavich controlled Araxio directly via Outono Ltd, a Cypriot entity which served as Soft2bet’s top holding until recently. Rabidi belonged to a close partner, Denys Butko, a Ukrainian national living on the Mediterranean island.

Soft2bet founder and CEO Uri Poliavich controlled Araxio directly via Outono Ltd, a Cypriot entity which served as Soft2bet’s top holding until recently.

The two men rarely appear together in official paperwork, but their friendship is obvious. Social media pictures show them spending time together with family in Ukraine. Poliavich even picked Butko as the director of one entity he used to buy a $475,000 flat in Panama City.

Butko did not reply to requests for comments.

Between 2017 and 2024, Soft2bet’s founder and Butko used Araxio and Rabidi respectively to establish nearly 550 casino URLs. Company accounts suggest Araxio owned software rights and Rabidi was a gambling operator.

From 2021, as Rabidi and Araxio kept popping up in European blacklists, Poliavich called in Butko to reorganise his affairs. Butko’s own Cypriot outfit, Interpava, played a key role in the reshuffle.

First, Interpava, which already owned Rabidi, took over Araxio while its software rights were moved to another Poliavich undertaking. Then, Interpava incorporated a third Curacao vehicle which assumed Rabidi’s casino operations and was granted a licence by local gambling authorities.

Interpava’s shares were finally transferred to another collaborator working with Butko. By the time Araxio and Rabidi were declared bankrupt in 2023 and 2024 respectively, the two entities were worthless. Direct ties to Poliavich and Butko were severed.

Georgina Choleva/Spoovio

‘There’s no good way to track them’

“Rabidi was an absolute money-making machine, with more than 70 very profitable online casinos operating worldwide,” says Stan van Liere, attorney at HBN Law & Tax, the firm executing Rabidi’s bankruptcy. “So far, dozens of creditors came forward with claims against Rabidi, but the company has no more assets or cash in Curacao, it’s all hidden in other jurisdictions.”

RightNow, a German legal firm helping players recover money, looked into various claims against Araxio and Rabidi, but could not find out who was behind them. “Basically there’s no good way to track them and get the money which is owed to customers based in Europe,” says Benedikt Quarch, co-founder of RightNow. “It is crazy that those big companies can just close and reopen legal entities and move funds around.”

In 2024, the network’s structures were further opacified. More shell corporations were formed in the Marshall Islands. Casino trademarks like Wazamba or House of Spades, initially held by Cypriot entities, were shifted to a Dubai post box company.

A majority of the blacklisted websites that Investigate Europe linked to Soft2bet also seemingly left Curaçao. They now use a gambling licence from Anjouan, an island in the Indian Ocean which has grown as another tax haven for virtual casinos. Just like Curaçao before, a permit from Anjouan doesn’t allow casinos to access most European markets legally.

Georgina Choleva/Spoovio

A sleek public image

Born in Ukraine in 1981, Poliavich, in his own words, hails from a “modest background”. A lawyer by training, he started his gambling career in Kyrgyzstan before launching Soft2bet in Kyiv in 2016. Poliavich made it a family business from the beginning, involving his wife as head of the company’s finances.

As it grew into an award-winning venture recognised for its “outstanding contribution to gaming”, Soft2bet relocated its main offices to Cyprus and Malta. Last September, Poliavich and his associates celebrated Soft2bet’s eighth anniversary in Budapest. The 300 guests were treated to a lavish gala dinner at Hungary’s Museum of National Art.

There was indeed much to toast. Soft2bet not only created a multitude of casinos that ended up on European blacklists, it also successfully rolled out a handful of licenced brands in Europe. Among them are Betinia and Campobet in Sweden and Denmark, as well as Elabet in Italy.

However, the websites’ traffic in authorised markets is far outweighed by other banned platforms linked to the group. With just over 15,000 Italian visits in the last three months of 2024, Elabet is eclipsed by the scheme’s 70 blacklisted casinos in the country.

Campobet, meanwhile, had hundreds of thousands of visitors from Norway, Finland, Hungary and Poland, where it is not allowed to operate. The brand was previously a sponsor of the Champions Hockey League in Sweden.

“The illegal online gambling market is a very interesting and unfortunate example of how law enforcement in Europe does not function.”

— Benedikt Quarch, a German lawyer

In the EU, an estimated 70 per cent of web-based betting was illegal by mid-2024, with 6,000 unlicensed providers targeting the region, according to Yield Sec, a marketplace analysis platform.

H2 Gambling Capital, another consultancy, reckons the blackmarket’s share is more around 20 per cent. Methodologies differ, but the scale is alarming.

“This isn’t a recent trend or one-time issue, it’s the new normal,” warns Ismail Vali, founder of Yield Sec. “The gambling industry in every jurisdiction exists as an iceberg marketplace. Above the waterline, the legal industry is highly visible – regulated, taxed, scrutinised. But it’s floating in a sea of criminality.”

The EU has no common legislation on gambling, leaving member states to regulate and police the sector independently.

“The illegal online gambling market is a very interesting and unfortunate example of how law enforcement in Europe does not function,” says Benedikt Quarch. “Let’s just imagine for one moment that there would be a European licensing mechanism. I think it would be much more efficient than in every 27 member states.”

Until such a consensus comes, unlicensed websites across the continent continue to target vulnerable players with little fear that national authorities are on their heels.

Back above the surface, Soft2bet is set for another bumper year ahead.

The group is gearing up to launch its Elabet brand in Greece, having gained the necessary licence there, even though 55 of its other websites feature on the country’s blacklist.

The Hellenic Gaming Commission said it had conducted a “deep review” of evidence and supporting documents and had not found any “verified connection between Rabidi and Soft2Bet”. Authorities in Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy and Poland did not reply to requests for comment.

In the meantime, Felix, the German player who lost €245,000 to Wazamba, tries to rebuild his life. After confessing his addiction to his family, he blocked himself from online banking and saw a therapist. With €1,400 of debts to repay each month, he’s not out of the woods yet. “There’s nothing left at the end of the month,” he says.

Additional reporting from Piret Reiljan and Harald Schumann
Editor: Chris Matthews