In recent months, a public conflict has been ongoing between the company and some of its former employees regarding the Favbet and Casino.ua brands. Following staff layoffs, the closure of certain projects, and delays in salary payments, dozens of employees have begun to speak openly about their work experiences.
Some of them claim there are months of unpaid wages, delayed payments, and a lack of clear communication from management.
At the same time, the Favbet group itself has found itself in the spotlight due to a decision by the state regulator regarding the activities of certain companies associated with the brand. Against this backdrop, the stories of former employees have gained public attention.
One of those who agreed to speak in detail about the situation within the company was Daria Zhurbenko, former Head of Brand at Casino.ua.
“It became clear that the problems began right after New Year’s.”
Daria says that employees noticed the first warning signs immediately after the New Year’s holidays. According to her, that was when the company first deviated from its usual payroll schedule.
“It became clear that the problems began right after New Year’s. Because after New Year’s, we weren’t paid our salaries—specifically, our December salaries. Usually, all reputable companies pay them before New Year’s. We weren’t paid until early February, and that’s when it became clear that problems were starting.”
Despite this, she says, most employees were in no hurry to jump to conclusions. Up until that point, the company had never delayed payments, so people were willing to believe management’s explanations.
“We had a really—I’ll put this in quotes—‘great’ CEO who told us that in another month or two, we’d get everything back on track and everything would be fine. I’d worked at the company long enough, and nothing like this had ever happened before. As someone who had already developed a certain level of trust in my employer, I was ready to believe him.”
According to Daria, for a while it even seemed as though the situation was gradually returning to normal.
“Somehow, even with these delays, things started to even out, because we received our February pay in early April. We thought everything would be fine. But in reality—it wasn’t.”
How the company explained the salary delays
According to Daria, employees were told the situation was due to problems with the company’s accounts following the sanctions, and they were assured that project funding was continuing.
“Management explained the situation by saying that Favbet’s accounts—and, consequently, Casino.ua’s accounts—had been frozen. And since the accounts were frozen, project funding, as we were initially told, was coming out of the owner’s own pocket.”
However, Daria says, the explanations began to change over time.
“Then, toward the end of this whole ordeal, it turned out that salaries were being paid from foreign accounts. But the fact remained that we were constantly assured: everyone will be paid, everything will be great, everything will be fine.”
According to her, the turning point came in June, when employees began more actively demanding concrete answers regarding their pay.
“When people started asking very insistently about their salaries, we were told that we were all troublemakers. They said, ‘You want money; you’ve already been told that you’ll be paid someday—so you’ll be paid someday.’”
Layoffs began almost immediately after the salary delays
According to Daria Zhurbenko, the first layoffs at the company began practically at the same time as the payroll delays. At the same time, within the Casino.ua team, they were not as widespread as in other divisions.
“The layoffs actually began right after New Year’s, when the major salary delays started. But, to be honest, the layoffs didn’t affect Casino.ua very much, because Casino.ua didn’t have a huge team to begin with.”
Instead, she says, those who remained on staff were gradually assigned to work on several projects at once.
“There were layoffs, but they were minor. It was more evident in the fact that, for example, the design team, the project management team, and all the other teams started working on not just one project, but two. In other words, people had more work to do.”
“People were simply laid off overnight”
Daria recalls that employees were almost never given advance warning of upcoming layoffs.
“People were simply invited to a call. And these were group calls. They’d say, ‘We’re sorry, but given the company’s current situation, we can no longer continue our collaboration.’ And people were simply laid off overnight.”
At the same time, she notes that at the beginning of the crisis, the company did fulfill some of its obligations to its employees.
“Back then, even after the pay cuts, they still paid us. There was a delay of up to a month, but they paid us. They even paid out vacation pay. So at that point, everything was handled appropriately.”
“As of today, the company owes me over 100,000 hryvnias.”
Daria herself says that after being laid off, she was left without a significant portion of her earnings.
“At the moment, it’s more than 100,000.”
According to her, when they were laid off, employees were promised that full payment would be made shortly.
“I was laid off on April 24. According to all the company’s promises, my March salary was supposed to be paid at the time of my layoff. Some employees even managed to receive it because, apparently, the accounting department didn’t yet know that these people had been laid off.”
However, she says, after that, the payments kept getting postponed.
“Then we all started waiting. And every week they told us, ‘Next week.’ And it just never ended.”
Daria explains that at first, the former employees were in no hurry to make the conflict public. On the contrary—they tried to reach an agreement with the company.
“At first, everyone tried their best to respond reasonably. They offered to buy back the equipment we still had on hand. These were MacBooks.”
However, according to her, the money never arrived.
“We were still owed our March and April salaries. Then the whole thing dragged on, and no one ever paid us.”
It was after that, Daria says, that former employees began to speak out openly about the problem.
“If you don’t want trouble with security—delete the post”
Daria says that after several months of waiting, former employees began speaking openly about the situation. She decided to post on LinkedIn, but almost immediately afterward, she received a call from company executives.
“We started discussing what we would say publicly. I wrote my first post on LinkedIn. After that, they called me and said, ‘If you don’t want trouble with security, please delete it.’”
According to Daria, after that conversation, she agreed to take down the post because she was still hoping at the time that the issue could be resolved without conflict.
“I deleted the post. And about a week later, they told us they could pay 35% of the debt. Of course, everyone agreed.”
However, that was effectively the end of the story.
“All we have at the moment is 35% and an offer to settle part of our wages with equipment. After that, we all started speaking out. We began giving interviews and commenting on posts.”
It was then, she claims, that talk began about investigations into the employees who remained with the company.
“They asked, ‘Are you in contact with those who have already left?’”
Daria emphasizes that she herself did not take a polygraph test. However, she says, employees who were still working at the time told her about such screenings.
“Current employees began to be sent for polygraph tests. They were asked whether they had passed any information on to us, whether they were still in contact with us, or whether they were discussing severance payments.”
According to her, employees were also told that their continued employment might depend on their answers to these questions.
“If you speak up and honestly say that you’re in contact with people who left the company, they’ll fire you and won’t pay your salary.”
Every week they’d say: “Wait a little longer.”
After a partial payment, Daria recalls, former employees were once again promised that they would be paid in full later.
“At first, they said we’d settle everything in June—definitely by mid-June.”
However, she says, as early as June, the employees received a new message.
“Then a statement was released saying that everyone would be paid in four months, once the new products were ‘up and running.’”
Daria claims that at the same time, former employees were told that the public outcry had allegedly complicated the situation.
“They said that comments made by me and another colleague had complicated their work, and that’s exactly why they couldn’t pay us.”
Buying Equipment Instead of Salaries
Another option for partial payment, according to Daria, was an offer to purchase equipment from the company’s warehouses.
However, she says, this arrangement raised quite a few questions. As an example, Daria cites one of the laptops.
“The equipment was available for purchase from warehouses in Ukraine and Romania, but it was priced exorbitantly—for example, a MacBook with a broken screen was listed at 80,000 hryvnias.”
Despite this, she says, people agreed to almost any terms because they wanted to recover at least some of the money they had earned.
However, according to Daria, not everyone managed to get their devices back.
“I wrote to the person in charge of this. But she just started ignoring me. Later, we were told outright that for people like us, redeeming the devices was no longer an option—because we had spoken out.”
After that, she recalls, another condition was announced, which the former employees perceived as a de facto denial of any prospect of receiving the remainder of their wages.
“Then they said that those who had spoken out would only be able to receive their wages after passing a polygraph test and speaking with security. In reality, that meant—never.”
It’s very difficult to prove this legally
Daria says that after consulting with lawyers, she realized that many former employees have virtually no legal means to recover the funds.
According to her, their official employment relationship lasted only until the end of last year.
“Until New Year’s, we were officially employed, with employment records. We received all payments for that period, and there are no issues there. After December, without warning, we were sent on unpaid leave. Then, just as suddenly, without warning, we were fired.”
It was the period that followed, she explains, that became the most problematic. According to Daria, a significant portion of the payments after that were made in cash, which makes it much harder to prove that the debt exists.
“The saddest thing is that they simply didn’t tell people the truth.”
Reflecting on the whole situation, Daria makes no secret of the fact that if the employees had been honestly told the real state of affairs right away, most of them would have been understanding and would have been able to find new jobs in time.
“I told the CMO at the time: Tell people honestly that, most likely, things are going to go badly for the company. We’ll be understanding about it and will simply start looking for jobs at the same time. But no one said that.”
According to Daria, due to the lack of such communication, many employees stayed with the company until the very end, hoping the situation would change.
She also cites the example of one of her colleagues who, fearing how things might unfold, found a second job but was later fired.
“He took on another job to have a ‘fallback option.’ But he was fired because he was working for two companies. Even though it wasn’t even a competing company.”
Despite everything, Daria says she still hopes to see this story come to a resolution.
After several months of waiting, she no longer makes predictions about whether the former employees will receive the rest of their funds, but she hopes the company will still fulfill its obligations.
