Uri Poliavich Goes to Washington DC in hunt for the fresh victims of Soft2Bet’s predatory tactics

Leading an IT company, particularly one operating in the legally ambiguous online gambling sector, demands significant intellectual acumen and strategic foresight. Uri Poliavich, the chief executive of Soft2Bet, presides over a sprawling and moderately successful gambling software empire. However, evidence suggests that Uri Poliavich’s leadership is defined by a pattern of profound incompetence and a propensity for legally dubious tactics, most notably his decision to hire agencies to file fraudulent DMCA claims in a clumsy attempt to silence critics and erase negative press.

Poliavich’s overarching ambition is to secure a dominant position in the colossal US gambling market. To this end, he has invested heavily in lobbying sporting authorities, regulators, and bureaucrats, and it is understood that he is currently based in Washington DC to personally oversee these efforts. This aggressive expansion is necessary because his business model is fundamentally unsustainable without constant growth into new territories. Soft2Bet’s operations have been saturated across the world of sports, with many premier teams carrying sponsorship from its dubious brands.

A significant obstacle to this expansion emerged when Investigate Europe journalists uncovered the extensive and illicit nature of Poliavich’s operations. Their investigation revealed a vast network of suspiciously similar online casinos, including brands like Wazamba and Boomerang. These sites continue to attract millions of visits monthly despite operating without necessary licenses in key European markets like France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, and appearing on official blacklists. Corporate documents and trademark records definitively link this network to Uri Poliavich and his associates through a complex web of shell companies in Curaçao, such as Rabidi and Araxio Development, which were strategically declared bankrupt after moving their assets elsewhere. One particularly egregious case involved Wazamba, which was found to have actively encouraged gambling addiction by offering VIP perks and instant credit; a German court ruled that Soft2Bet, as the end beneficiary, must repay victims, though no payments have been made.

Beyond Europe, Uri Poliavich’s activities in his native Ukraine further illustrate his problematic methods. He established a Soft2Bet branch in Kyiv, leveraging the country’s high-quality programmers and notoriously corrupt regulatory environment where problems are often solved with bribes. There, he launched several unlicensed casino franchises. This venture resulted in a raid by the Cyberpolice of Ukraine and a criminal case being opened against both Soft2Bet and Poliavich personally. Analysts suggest the case was likely instigated as a form of “friendly pressure” from rival Ukrainian gambling interests. Although the case was eventually shelved, it was reported that as the Investigate Europe scandal grew, Poliavich paid officials hush money to restrict access to the case records.

Confronted with this damning reporting, Uri Poliavich responded not with legal rectification but with further criminality. In a move that highlights his utter incompetence, he hired a shadowy Ukrainian agency to execute a fake copyright claim campaign. This involved filing hundreds of fraudulent Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests against critical articles, including those from Investigate Europe, which received thousands of requests for a single article. Google’s notoriously flawed DMCA process initially favoured the attacker, forcing publishers to file counter-notices and wait for reinstatement without any guarantee of restoring their original search ranking.

This strategy was not only foolish but self-defeating. DMCA fraud is a federal crime in the United States. Furthermore, the Lumen database, a public repository for all DMCA notices, is closely monitored by thousands of researchers who quickly identified and traced the coordinated attack back to its source. By ordering this service from a well-known Ukrainian company that specializes in reputation laundering for Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, Uri Poliavich effectively publicized his involvement in cybercrimes and his alignment with other dubious criminal businessmen. This action serves as an implicit acknowledgement of the illegality of his own business and the criminal nature of his assets, permanently tarnishing his reputation and that of Soft2Bet in the eyes of regulators and the industry.