A Russian news platform has outed what is reputedly the country’s largest online casino and its founder, a 33-year-old techie from Tatarstan.
With the exception of sports betting, web gambling is illegal in Russia. Yet, according to CalvinAyre.com, Curacao-licensed Azino777 generates upwards of 15 billion rubles a year in bets (US$229 million), accounting for around 20 percent of the estimated underground market, and advertises heavily on file-sharing sites, often with flashy videos featuring Russian hip-hop stars.
According to Russian media group RBK, it is the biggest advertiser in the Russian-speaking segment of the internet.
Earlier this month, The Bell, an online newsletter publishing daily in Russian and weekly in English, tracked Azino777 to owner Albert Marselevich Valiakhmetov through court documents in Kiev, where the casino and various associated entities are under investigation by Ukrainian police.
The site identified Valiakhmetov as an IT specialist living in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny, a major manufacturing hub in the Republic of Tatarstan.
According to The Bell, Azino was launched from the Ukraine in 2014 through a legal company called Royal Game, which, opened an account with the Kiev branch of Russia’s Sberbank for processing transactions. Working under the name Orion Lab, Royal Game hired designers, developers and marketing specialists, set them up in an office in the center of the Ukrainian capital and began ramping up its online reach.
Since then, Azino has appeared in thousands of illegal online gambling domains routinely blocked by Russia’s telecom watchdog, Roskomnadzor. State-operated news agency RIA reported that Roskomnadzor’s blacklist contained more than 1,300 Azino-affiliated domains.
Last June, police raided the Kiev office of Royal Game and confiscated computers, mobile phones and other digital files allegedly connected to Azino’s activities.
In January, Russia’s Federal Tax Service identified an entity called Victory777, reported to be Azino’s parent, as the first company of any kind to make the country’s online payment processing blacklist.
However, according to reports, Royal Game is still in business, and The Bell reported no problems in opening an Azino777 account and depositing and withdrawing funds.
