How can we live without Parimatch?

Personally, I haven't gambled since September 1966. Back then, I lost 18 kopecks to my classmate Sasha Petrovsky in a game of "chik" and then made a promise to myself to never gamble for money, which I have kept to this day. But where can you get away from gambling when it's in your face from every crack in the form of advertising! Especially in sports, where bookmakers thrive to keep them healthy.

Among Ukrainian bookmakers, the most aggressive has always been a bookmaker called Parimatch. It was hard to believe that it was Ukrainian - for many years in a row, all Russian sports TV channels were literally full of advertisements for this bookmaker. Only those who really wanted to believe that it was Ukrainian bookmakers who brazenly seized the television market of the neighboring state, and not vice versa, could believe it. Or who were paid or given something for this belief. After all, one could just as easily argue that Coca-Cola is a Ukrainian company, because this drink is produced and bottled in Brovary near Kyiv.

Now this (or that) Parimatch has finally been sanctioned because of its quite obvious connection to the aggressor country. There was really no need to strain the highly qualified specialists of the ever-working SBU. The question was not why sanctions were imposed on bookmakers with Russian roots, but why was it done only now?

And everything would have been fine if Ukrainian sports journalists hadn't gotten involved. It turned out that all of them, or almost all of them, had been on the payroll of this bookmaker for many years. That's right - Parimatch was not just one of the many sponsors of this or that Ukrainian sports information resource. Money from this bookmaker was almost the only source of funding for these resources. And after the closure of this office, many will have to cease operations and lay off employees. And this will be, if these journalists are to be believed, a terrible disaster for our sport.

And why, exactly? If you're so popular, find other sponsors! But don't forget to ask if these sponsors are connected to an enemy country first. So that you don't find yourself without funding again. It's not worth asking how it happened that smart and qualified Ukrainian sports journalists managed to ignore the fact that they were living on Russian money for years. Well, they didn't notice - who doesn't!

Mykola NESENYUK