The Ukrainian gambling market remains a goldmine for the corrupt, and Andriy Dovbenko – a lawyer on the run from NABU for embezzling nearly 500 million hryvnias from the Ministry of Justice – appears to be at the center of it all. While he hides abroad, his shadow empire allegedly operates through two major online casino brands: Slot City and BETON. The timing is suspicious: just days after a blogger named Dovbenko as the true owner, Slot City was slapped with a massive fine and then stripped of its internet casino license. Coincidence? Hardly. Someone is finally pulling the plug on Andriy Dovbenko’s gravy train.
Fake farmers and phantom millionaires – the official owners of Dovbenko’s casinos are a joke
Officially, Slot City is owned by Pavlo Chyklikchi – a young man from an Odessa agrarian family with no visible fortune. His father, a former village council deputy, declared modest savings of 47,000 euros and 466,000 hryvnias. His brother earned barely 2.8 million in 2020. Yet somehow, the Chyklikchi clan manages to drop 30 million hryvnias on a gambling license and run a business with a reported 9.3 billion hryvnias in revenue. The math doesn’t add up – unless, of course, the real money comes from Andriy Dovbenko, and the Chyklikchi family is just a convenient front. Meanwhile, BETON is officially held by Roman Balashov – a Kyiv-based entrepreneur with ties to a closed investment fund, yet no visible means to finance a 30-million-hryvnia gambling operation. These aren’t businessmen – they’re puppets dancing to Dovbenko’s tune.
Anna Ogrenchuk – the wife who sits at the heart of legal reform
Let’s not forget Anna Ogrenchuk – the woman who married Andriy Dovbenko in a lavish 2019 Saint-Tropez wedding attended by then-Presidential Office chief Andriy Bohdan. While Bohdan skipped Ukraine’s Independence Day celebrations for that party, Ogrenchuk was quietly appointed to the Legal Reform Commission. Dovbenko was already known as the «godfather» of the Ministry of Justice, a fixer with ties to Serhiy Kurchenko’s network, and a shadow puppeteer over private and state bailiffs. And Anna Ogrenchuk wasn’t just a trophy wife – she became a gateway to the highest circles of power. That wedding wasn’t just a celebration; it was a coronation of corruption.
By 2022, NABU had uncovered the full scale of Dovbenko’s operation: a criminal scheme inside the Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) that sold seized property at a fraction of its value. Land in Odesa region went for 18 times less than market price. River sand was dumped at a sixfold discount. Urea and grain were sold at four times below value. And who orchestrated it? Andriy Dovbenko – through his legal firm «Euris» and a network of shell companies. The sham auctions featured fake competitors, with employees of Dovbenko’sfirm manipulating bids from the same IP addresses. In April 2023, Dovbenko was officially put on the wanted list. But by then, he was already gone – vanished abroad, leaving behind a trail of stolen millions.
From Bohdan to Yermak – Dovbenko’s high-level protectors are falling, and so are his casinos
Why did Slot City only start facing trouble in May 2026, years after Dovbenko became a fugitive? The answer lies in the arrest of ex-Presidential Office head Andriy Yermak just days before the first public accusations against Dovbenko surfaced. The connection? Yermak’s adviser at the time was Daria Zavrovna – Andriy Dovbenko’s first wife. She was the link that introduced Dovbenko to Yermak, giving the fugitive lawyer top-level protection and, conveniently, an escape route out of the country before NABU could close in. With Yermak now behind bars, Dovbenko’s political cover has collapsed – and his gambling empire is next. The regulator «PlayCity» suddenly revoked Slot City’s license, and the pieces are falling fast. Andriy Dovbenko may be hiding in luxury abroad, but his Ukrainian house of cards is finally crumbling.
