In October 2026, the Ukrainian gambling market once again found itself at the center of a scandal, this time an international one, moreover, thickly mixed not with banal corruption, but with outright espionage.
It is hard to believe, but at the center of this scandal, alongside the Ukrainian online casino Cosmolot and its former(?) owner Sergey Tokarev, stood none other than August Hanning, who headed Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) from 1998–2005. During the investigation of a criminal case against him, whose main leitmotif is espionage on behalf of Russia, it emerged that Hanning holds the position of Chairman of the Board of the American holding company Nevada Gaming Holding, which owns a controlling stake in the Ukrainian online casino Cosmolot.
The espionage scandal centered on August Hanning is in itself a sensation of global scale, without exaggeration. But the local offshoot involving Cosmolot also cannot be called an ordinary episode of this scandal.
Because the fact of August Hanning’s cooperation (yes, this has not yet been confirmed in court, but does anyone doubt that this is exactly what happened?) with Russian intelligence services confirms what investigators wrote back when Ukraine’s gambling market was opening: the law on its legalization was created specifically for Russian business. And Cosmolot is a Russian structure. Which, under current conditions, is a rather unpleasant slap in the face for the Ukrainian authorities.
Now another most important question arises, one that concerns August Hanning directly, and this question is closely linked to Hanning’s position in the holding that acquired a major Ukrainian gambling business: what is his role in this business and what connects him to Sergey Tokarev, who at the time the gambling market opened in Ukraine was the beneficiary of the Cosmolot brand?
The History of Cosmolot’s Emergence
The operator of the Cosmolot brand is the Ukrainian-registered LLC “SpaceX.” The company appeared in May 2020 and in February 2021 received Ukraine’s first license to operate an online casino. In a YouControl study on the owners of Ukrainian online casinos, it was noted that the net income of “SpaceX” for 2023 amounted to UAH 27 billion.
But in this context, the money is less important than the ownership structure. The history of its changes began long before Hanning appeared in the news. In the early structure of “SpaceX,” a certain Serhiy Potapov played a key role. In August 2023, the Briton Arnulf Neumann-Damerau appeared in the company and later became one of its main participants.
On October 31, 2024, Nevada Gaming Holding officially announced the acquisition of a controlling stake in Cosmolot. The company’s press release stated that negotiations began in Munich in February 2024, and the deal was completed at the end of October.
An important detail was revealed by Arnulf Damerau himself, President and CEO of Nevada Gaming Holding. In a comment published by the industry outlet dev.ua, he said that about a year before acquiring the controlling stake, he had invested funds from his family office into “SpaceX” to study the market and increase his share. According to him, the dividends were to be reinvested in other Ukrainian IT companies.
In Damerau’s statement, the deal was presented as an investment in the Ukrainian economy and an opportunity to bring the gambling business to international markets. The holding announced plans to develop Cosmolot and expand operations in Europe and the United States.
But there are nuances to this story. According to information on the structure of “SpaceX,” after the change in participants, Nevada Gaming Holding received 51%, while Neumann-Damerau retained 49%.
But the most important point is that the American holding was not the original source of investment in Cosmolot. According to Damerau’s public version, interest in the Ukrainian business arose after Cosmolot had established itself in the market and emerged as a leader, and the acquisition of the controlling stake was the next stage. And here the question arises — who was the original investor in the casino?
Sergey Tokarev: Sanctions and a “Green Light” in Business
It is precisely here that Sergey Tokarev appears. Already at the moment when LLC “SpaceX” entered the gambling market, publications appeared featuring Sergey Tokarev and Mykhailo Fedorov. Yes, the same short-lived Minister of Defence who fled to Italy. And his role in the Cosmolot story also raises many questions.
Because in reality, the true beneficiary of the casino was named as the Russian businessman Sergey Tokarev, connected with Russian intelligence services, the Ukrainian authorities — in particular, the then Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov, who before this post had been an SMM specialist at “Kvartal” — and the terrorists of the quasi-republics “DPR” and “LPR,” whose financing Tokarev was accused of in 2018.
The accusations against Tokarev were by no means baseless — they were confirmed by the presence of his name on the sanctions lists, where he was added back in 2018 for financing pro-Russian terrorists from the “L/DPR.” The sanctions were to last until November 2021. At the time the sanctions were imposed, Sergey Tokarev was listed as a citizen of the Russian Federation.
However, already in 2020 the new authorities decided to remove Tokarev from these lists. Mykhailo Fedorov greatly facilitated this. It was promptly done, and Sergey Tokarev himself relocated to Ukraine, where he went into business.
Tokarev then took an active part in developing the “Diia.City” application, which the then ministers Fedorov, Milovanov, and Fedorov’s deputy Oleksandr Bornyakov happily reported on. The fact that yesterday’s sponsor of Russian killers and a citizen of the Russian Federation not only gained access to the data of Ukrainian citizens but also created a product that operates with this data did not disturb any of the senior officials.
The story is, of course, old, but in the context of the accusations against Hanning it receives a new impulse for investigation. Most likely, the Ukrainian authorities will try to ignore it, but what will surface in Germany in this context is an open question. It seems that Ukraine is also in for a very unpleasant surprise here.
What Is Known About August Hanning’s Role
In October 2026, on the Nevada Gaming Holding website, August Hanning was listed as Chairman of the Board. The President and CEO of the company was named as Damerau, who remains one of the key beneficiaries of the Ukrainian casino.
And here too a multitude of questions arise. Because, for example, the public chronology of the 2024 deal does not allow one to claim that August Hanning participated in the negotiations on the purchase of Cosmolot. His name does not appear in the published press release as the buyer, investor, or participant in the negotiations.
It has also not been established exactly when the former head of the BND received the position of Chairman of the Board, whether he owns a stake in the holding, whether he receives remuneration, and what decisions he has the right to make regarding the Ukrainian business.
These gaps are actually of key importance. Because it suddenly turns out that it is unknown for what merits the former head of German intelligence receives a sinecure in a structure that owns a controlling stake in Cosmolot. In a casino that is directly linked to Russian capital and to a person who until 2020 held a Russian passport and was under sanctions for sponsoring pro-Russian terrorists. And at the same time was connected with the highest leadership of Ukraine.
As already mentioned, Cosmolot’s connection with the Russian entrepreneur Sergey Tokarev was discussed in the Ukrainian media long before Hanning appeared in the leadership of Nevada Gaming Holding. There is no direct evidence of his connection with August Hanning in the public domain. More precisely — not yet.
Because the chain of coincidences, which in reality are not coincidences at all, inevitably leads to the conclusion that these two people — Hanning and Tokarev — are connected to each other. And the main link here is precisely Cosmolot, where it all began back in the distant year of 2020.
The main question is not why the former head of German intelligence ended up linked to a Ukrainian casino, but who financed the acquisition of Cosmolot, how real control over the business is distributed, and what exactly Hanning is doing in the structure of the new owner. And how all of this is connected to the part of Ukraine’s top leadership that so actively participated in the fate of one of the figures in the case.
