---
title: 'How Manbet Entered the Russian Betting Market During the Pandemic'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=W2awcrrjhRA'
video_id: 'W2awcrrjhRA'
date: 2026-07-11
duration_sec: 1818
---

# How Manbet Entered the Russian Betting Market During the Pandemic

> Source: [How Manbet Entered the Russian Betting Market During the Pandemic](https://youtube.com/watch?v=W2awcrrjhRA)

## Summary

In this interview, Roman Kozhevnikov, head of brand and PR at bookmaker Manbet, discusses the company's launch during the pandemic, licensing challenges, and marketing strategies. He explains how Manbet differentiated itself in a crowded market through high odds, a loyalty program, and media placements on authoritative sites.

### Key Points

- **Launch During Crisis** [00:02] — Manbet officially launched on April 16, 2020, during the pandemic, viewing crisis as a time for growth.
- **Origin of Name** [01:14] — The name 'Manbet' derives from the legal entity 'Myelophone' and the prefix 'bad' relates to the bookmaker company 'Alice Milo'.
- **Licensing Requirements** [02:55] — Obtaining a Russian license requires authorized capital of at least 100 million rubles, net assets of at least 1 billion rubles, and a bank guarantee of 500 million rubles.
- **Marketing During Pandemic** [04:36] — Manbet placed ads on non-typical resources like Kommersant and Moskovsky Komsomolets to build brand awareness even when few sports events were available.
- **Growth Metrics** [07:37] — By February, Manbet saw a record month with 100,000 new visitors; by January, they had 774,000 monthly visitors.
- **Competitive Advantages** [11:32] — Manbet offers a wide line, high odds, and a loyalty program with bonuses like birthday free bets and prize draws.
- **Line Sourcing** [13:12] — Manbet buys its betting line from a supplier that also sells to other bookmakers, explaining similarities with competitors like 1xBet.
- **Player Restrictions** [15:11] — A unified database tracks players for multi-accounting; restrictions are applied based on security, not a common database with competitors.
- **First Deposit Bonus** [17:15] — New players get 100% bonus up to 15,000 rubles; with promo code from Bookmaker Ratings, up to 20,000 rubles. Wagering: 25x on odds ≥1.5 within a month.
- **Cashback Offer** [20:57] — Monthly cashback of 10% of lost bets, up to 10,000 rubles per month, with annual cap of 120,000 rubles.
- **Bookmaker Ratings Impact** [22:13] — Manbet actively responds to reviews on Bookmaker Ratings; 25% of complaints are satisfied, 68% unfounded. The platform helps retain customers.
- **RB Award Expectations** [27:17] — Manbet expects nominations for Debut of the Year, Reliable Bookmaker, Wide Line, and Best Odds at the Bookmaker Ratings Award.

### Conclusion

Manbet successfully entered the Russian market during the pandemic by investing in brand awareness and offering competitive odds. Their focus on customer feedback and loyalty programs has driven significant growth.

## Transcript

the decision was made in such a way that a crisis is still a time for growth. Our official launch date is April 16, 2020. Essentially, in the midst of the pandemic, that is, during the crisis, everyone revealed their full potential and demonstrated their talents.
The market was already audibly filled. How have you become better than your competitors? The struggle continues, it continues How have you become better than your competitors? The struggle continues, it continues endlessly. Hello everyone,
and today our guest is a representative of the bookmaker company "Manbet", the head of the brand and PR department, Roman Kozhevnikov. Also with us is Alexander Vishnevsky, a regular forecaster for the site "Bookmaker Ratings", a
professional copper and better expert. I'm glad to see you and Roman Studios. How are you? How are you? Great mood! Thank you for the invitation. Glad to be Thank you for the invitation. Glad to be here. Everyone is great, ready for battle. Roman
Mel-B is such an original name. I'll even remember going to school where the desks and boards are chalk. What's your name? Mel-B is actually a very simple story. They say "bad" is a derivative of the name of the legal
entity "Myelophone". Well, the prefix "bad" actually refers to the bookmaker company " Alice Milo".  I knew the background. The background is, instrument. The legal name itself was
you been working for the company? I've been working for the company since the very beginning. How did we become a bookmaker company? We received a bank guarantee and a license and began operating in the Russian market. Before that, you weren't in the Tver company. Before that, I
that dealt directly with bookmakers. I worked in an agency and worked specifically with bookmakers, so I was on that side and now I'm on the advertiser's side. I'm
just interested in where bookmaker companies form their staff and where they come from. Partner companies. An excellent question, since we are currently excellent question, since we are currently searching for employees.
When I came, I came from the street. That is, it was a very banal story That is, it was a very banal story when one of the employees was looking for people for the team and posted an ad in a Facebook group. At that moment, I saw it.
The offer seemed interesting to me. I'll respond. We talked and convinced each other that we need each other. I just want to hug. In novels, if long life, we were able to spend time with our Facebook.  Everyone speaks Russian to me,
Facebook, although I heard someone say Facebook, I say Roman, I just want to ask about the license, the bookmaker company MLB was just mentioned, it officially received a Russian license not long ago. I would
like my dad to tell me in more detail about getting a license, how difficult it is to do in Russia and why MLB entered the market so late. The difficulty is getting a license in the Russian Federation. This is because the
requirements for bookmakers are initially very high. That is, it is not enough to just come and say everything I want and give money. Well, again, regarding the question of money, these are quite large numbers. I
wrote down exactly how much it costs to enter the Russian market directly and they will be right up to you. At the moment, yes, the authorized capital for licenses must be at least 100 million rubles, plus we will
not reduce it, and the amount of net assets must be at least 1 assets must be at least 1 billion rubles. In fact, the second important restriction is a bank guarantee, which is
the amount of 500 million rubles, which is necessary to obtain a license, that is, well I've been thinking about a fairly large investment for a long time. I'm the billion 600 million. How was this decision made? You entered the market in a very
difficult year. The decision was made in such a way that a crisis is still a time for growth, and we had a team that wasn't afraid to start and maximized its potential. It was during this period that we had a
lot of debate about whether to postpone this for a long time or start now. That is, our official launch date is April 16, 2020. But in fact, in the midst of the pandemic, the very height of it, I give you my word. And here the goal was
precisely to warm up the market, that is, to enter the market and make a name for yourself at a time when you were absent from sporting events. People were events. People were probably more interested in sports, let's say,
purposefully. That is, they lacked something before. When a person lacks something, he tries to find and read, look, but in terms of placement, we placed on unusual resources, but not typical for a bookmaker, let's say,
Kommersant, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Komsomolets, Komsomolskaya Pravda, in the sports sections, and we provided growth.  Brand awareness, that is, we bought media advertising, that is, there
was no conversion kite, well, there was Belarusian football and eSports before, at the moment when sporting events began to recover, we saw the exponential growth that we have been seeing for the
last six months, but it seems like a very risky strategy because those people your ads, they had nothing to bet on right now Belarusian championship is eSports for those people who haven't followed
Belarus, well, that's probably the lot of gamblers who, from lying down, bet on something, it's important for you to experience that moment of excitement, the moment of winning or losing, and this audience, it's not the most positive,
this audience is positive in any case, that is, they also see ads. I didn't mention specialized resources, but there's eSports dot ru and so on. Here the question arose more about how ready we are now to declare
ourselves, that is, in any case, when a person sees an ad or hears a name before in  In the process when he approaches the choice of a product, a commodity, here it is not the paint of the company, he remembers in himself, that is, it is
deposited in the subconscious that he saw this somewhere, because he heard when a person sees an authoritative resources that are authoritative for him, then
meeting our company as a company that is reliable and because, well, his authoritative resources, they will not place advertisements for some obscure products and the like, that is, the idea was because people will get used to the brand
outside of Belarus, they are already with public ones on prom.md, delivery was for this and for a very important resource such as the company's personnel, that is, during the crisis, everyone revealed themselves to the maximum, showed their
talents and at the same time, we now have employees in the company, we are tested by such time as the pandemic, the lack of sporting events, what they are ready to do, that is, this is the most important and valuable
resource that we acquired during the pandemic, but in the first months, you should have been cool in a coffin minus investing so much in advertising and there is no profit, but this is an investment, I would not say that this is  Some people just
investment that's now bearing fruit. Just look at how we've grown, for example, compared to last year. February was our record
month. We saw an increase of 100,000 people on average in terms of visitors to the site. This is a monthly figure. So, as of January, we already have 774,000 visitors per month. At the same time, we
advertising media that were there during the pandemic played a role due to the fact that growth began with the immediate return of sporting events. We saw
I got the impression that your advertising strategy any kind of incomprehensible ads that appear on Instagram, Telegram, and movie-watching sites are all like that. Excuse the expression, and
code that's somewhere around where it's ultimately delivered to the Manbat website. But I can say 100% that this is not the case because we don't place a virus.  Well,
first of all, we control all the placements, that is, where it happens, be it Instagram, YouTube, and so on, in movie theaters, we basically don’t on, in movie theaters, we basically don’t place advertising and, yes, that is, a movie
I’m just sorry to interrupt you, I’m a person who has subscriptions to an online movie theater and at the same time I can watch there without authorization, like typing in a search engine “watch online” something and there very often an
something and there very often an advertisement for Manbat pops up. I’d be glad if it were there, I’d be happy if it were again, I repeat, not our advertising, that is, it’s in no way connected with us, absolutely a brand, that is, our brand is easiest to highlight since we are
located, firstly, in the .ru domain zone and we are directly on the FTS website, you can get all the downloads there, we are written in Cyrillic, that is, the logo would
only be in Cyrillic, but also all the advertising materials that can be seen are ours, which are our company’s, they are brick in Cyrillic, these are completely different companies mail.ru official FTS license, what exactly is
in Latin, honestly, I don’t know anything about this company at all, I can’t say, that is, it’s like in the bookmaker market, compare funds  Understand what is what, the dream in this pair of matches is completely different companies, it's impossible to compare the
fund b, you're really very happy, it's called differently, NLP true, had a bitcom gun, 7 first letters, 6 are the same, I'm hiring for this story, but we're fighting this as best we can. Yes, that is, there is an agency where we regularly write an appeal to
ask them to block sites, that is, we, unfortunately, cannot somehow influence this ourselves, only through Roskomnadzor. Roman, I would like to relevant here. First, there is mail.ru, which you imagine yourself controlling in the
legal field. If there is bitcom email, about which you say nothing, diskos, well, they exist but we know nothing, or there is we, rim, which are some copying you, which you would try to sue there and hate them, first or
but in fact, they are scammers, that is, scammers, they operate illegally on the territory of the Russian Federation, then we are trying to fight this and write a doctor. In this case, if your company has been around for less than a year and you are already being copied, you are so successful and  Or
already being copied, you are so successful and  Or maybe yes into the street right on this very sensor. To do
loyalty program for sports fans RB Plus and take sports fans RB Plus and take part in the drawing of valuable prizes.
If things are going so well, then why was the market already so full? How have you become better than competitors who have been in the market for many years? But we offer a wide enough line, which is important for professionals.
High odds. Most often, I go in and look at the odds again. Some specific events are compared, even top ones. Some events that players come to bet on just for fun. Yes, they
directly choose, and the higher the odds, the higher the k, and high comparison tables everywhere on specialized resources. In Google, you can find them there in Yandex, and so on. People come and most often they see us at the top because
odds, plus our loyalty program, which we have now begun to actively refine, offering some new interesting ones.  Plyushkina 1, which is stored on current players, for example, there is a birthday bonus for a
promo code for a free bet. We raffle off this from social networks and on our website we give out some material prizes. There are scarce PlayStations, and at the beginning of last year we raffled off PlayStations, iPhones, and well, some standard
maintain the interest of players, speaking of lines. But the most popular trick speaking of lines. But the most popular trick that comes your way is about the similarity and the that comes your way is about the similarity and the line of everything that there is one xb, you are one of their
bets. But if you look at the line odds, then firstly, the list itself, secondly, the odds themselves, the point is that rumors are circulating that you are copying a 1x bet, that rumors are circulating that you are copying a 1x bet, that is, the line is adopted from a 1x
bet. I will try to answer very beautifully, but in fact, for example, there are two retail stores that purchase products from one supplier. To protect the supplier from separate bets, and you have the same one,
absolutely right, and here the same story. We buy the line of a certain supplier who has the right to sell this line to anyone. Everything is sufficient, this is a starting line or a dynamic line, it is dynamic, and by the way, since
roughly speaking, there is this, he will place  A huge amount there and on another in the ROM will change significantly after that, then they will change simultaneously for everyone, and that includes yours, even if yours hasn't been placed this huge bet, with a small
exception that here at some point we can already determine for ourselves what margin we want to see on the odds, as a rule, it is the lowest for us, again on the market. Regarding the odds service, I would like to
say that users who may be interested in this issue should use a very cool service called from dot ru. There you choose the largest, most favorable odds, compare all
most favorable odds, compare all Russian offices and choose what suits you best. I will continue the grid for the year, my line about the similarity of 1x bet 1 x bad. I essentially allegedly you operate as a conglomerate and essentially allegedly there is a common
proof of this is the fact that if a person is blocked in one of the you would draw a limit, not only is it fixed in another, then he cannot place a bet at all, or at all.  Or he can't bet more than one ruble, is this true? This is
bet more than one ruble, is this true? This is not entirely true. It's a slightly different department, including security services. What I mean is that including security services. What I mean is that
and tracks this history of the first reasons why a player who came to the new one can be cut. I confirm this because I was an employee of the letter X company. There is a unified database that monitors all players.
Yes, that is, this player was noticed for multiple accounts. That is, I think our viewers understand in general what we are talking about when a person made
different bets from different accounts, and in one or different bookmakers, a company, from one device, the price of the device, from the same payment systems, from the same systems. Therefore, it happens that they do things like using a spouse's passport, etc., and so on.
Various such schemes. In this case, the player will be cut. They won't bet on him. That is, it's not a common database specifically for common database for a much larger number of contacts that are independent
of each other. Of course, this would be possible. Independent of 1 x beta 1, their bets are absolutely, have you taken any actions to sue those who copy you, take photos, how can this be done if we work within the
our competitors work in general, it is not clear where and how, but it is practically impossible to do this, it’s just a struggle, it’s endless, that is, this appeal to Roskomnadzor to
block sites that do not correspond, which are fraudulent, and so on, and on a daily basis, people send, send, send, I would like you to tell me again about the bonus offers that the
bookmaker company Manbet has, what’s interesting, Sasha is sitting next to me, he’s a professional player, he probably likes bonuses, but these bonuses
should be interesting for him, what interesting bonuses do you have there, for example, FreeBSD, registered, received FreeBSD, or received 200 percent on the first deposit, what’s interesting, do you currently have
for new players, we have a bonus on the first deposit by default equal to fifteen thousand rubles, that is, in fact, it is equal to one hundred percent of the replenishment, but not more than 15 thousand rubles, there is an announced amount for
which  It credits payments as quality 1. Well, for example, you deposited 10 thousand, and you get another 10,000 on top of that, added to your bonus account. There distribute through our brand ambassadors, including through
bookmaker ratings. We have an exclusive promo code that will increase the first deposit bonus, that is, it is also 100 percent, but up to 20,000 100 percent, but up to 20,000 rubles. How difficult is it to win it back? As
for whether it is difficult to win back or not, that is more of a question for the players. But I will say this according to the rules. I simply corrected the rule for them for players. Well, I will explain why I said so. First, to win back the bonus, you need to
leave it on events with odds of at least 1 and 5 more than 25 times odds of at least 1 and 5 more than 25 times within a month. My verdict is that half of the bets from the Sure program do not fit into the
odds of 1 and 5 because they vary between 14 and 15. You need to take wintering. You, as a professional bettor, are a lot, but every 20 to 40  Play in opinion, that you look like this bonus? Well, firstly,
only thing that interests me about similar apps is how much your initial payment doubles. That's great, but the limit is 15,000 rubles for everyone and 20,000 rubles for clients. Bookmaker ratings.
Well, that's it. I'd like more, of course, but I always want more. But as for wagering, you need to wager the bonus 25 times, as far as I'm concerned. Usually, the market is smaller, but the number of times you need to
wager the bonus is smaller, no matter how many times you look at the terms and conditions everywhere. Plus or minus, the same for the first deposit bonus. I probably won't go into details, probably won't go into details, but again, when wagering the bonus, you always
want more, and quite a lot of people wager the bonus with us. That is, if I can give you exact numbers now, but regularly, I don't give you
regularly, I don't give you 5 percent of people per month, that will amount to 5 percent of people who lose. Yes, but at the same time, that is, these are honest statistics, yes, some kind of, but at the same time, as Alexander said above, he is not a bonus hunter. Bonus Hunter is
actually sick.  We'd be happy to offer more and opportunities without smaller draws, but I think my market colleagues will confirm that bonus hunters
simply swoop in and start taking them, that's all. At the moment, if we offer this opportunity, there simply won't be any business left. Probably not everyone knows. I'll explain that with us, hunters are players who come
to wager the bonus and collect the bonuses. No longer is our sound, which is not returned, and you also get a new victim who simply takes this bonus. In principle, of course, an unwanted public. And again, betting, before the
maker companies, is about gambling, about excitement. That is, at the moment when this money is credited to the bonus account, it's an additional opportunity for a person to play if their bet from their main deposit didn't win.
Again, we have a returning bonus offer: cashback at the end of each month for a year, a person can receive such cashback up to 120 can receive such cashback up to 120 thousand rubles as a percentage. This is what it is,
ten percent of the lost bet amount, but not more than 10 thousand rubles per month. Roman, tell us more about cooperation with the rating  bookmakers, how do you feel about this in general? How does this affect your work and the development of
affect your work and the development of your St. Petersburg company in general?  Thank you for the these bookmakers. This is the main platform, one of the main platforms where we have a representative of our company who respond to complaints and user reviews.
respond to complaints and user reviews. from the bookmaker rating from players to make the product better. That is, we directly analyze each review. I receive reviews, yes, even those that are
important, for example, a player, something happened, but no one responded to him, but they cannot help, they respond with formal replies, and as it usually happens, they say, “Wait a I try to respond to these reviews as quickly as possible.
Our team collects all the information, transfers it to the marketing department, and we will already come up with some new promotions or new solutions for our product itself. Now I’ll go through the numbers. I looked at the bookmaker rating site
based on reviews. More than 300 reviews were left. The average rating is somewhere around three. There are about 293 user ratings, plus 192 complaints, of
which 25 percent, that is, a quarter of all complaints are satisfied. 68 percent of complaints are unfounded, 3 percent are not  Satisfied and five rating time with the help of bookmaker ratings,
opinion, what would have happened to these clients? Would you have lost them? They would have gone to another you have lost them? They would have gone to another bookmaker company. If bookmaker company. If this money had not been returned with the help of RB, we
clients. We would have lost many more players only because players only because one player has other friends whom who can write reviews on all known sites, and word of mouth will cause
much more damage than just one negative review. Therefore, answering the question, what should we do? We lost more than a few players. We would have lost much more. I believe that
this is actually a human factor when raising an issue for discussion in general so that other people can see it. Plus, it should be a bookmaker rating as an independent source, an independent expert from the point of view of resolving the issue to a
specific player. Therefore, let's say it will be much more effective to convey this player's point of view. Yes, I argue that it will be more effective to go to an authoritative publication and post a complaint or review there, that is, at least
it will be seen.  Other people and anyone will help in any case. In this case, the bookmaker rating sends a request directly to the bookmaker company itself, and this issue is resolved. Well, faster,
for example, he would sit and think, so why write to technical support? Or not write to I now want you to talk about the sanctions you apply to players in general. What are you prohibited from doing besides multi-accounting with Tinkoff,
besides full-time players and other things. What is prohibited for what they cut the account for, what they prohibited for what they cut the account for, what they lower the limits for, what they don't pay out money for. If this happens, then this is the question from my side. Can Sasha
come and win 20 bets in a row with you? And if there is a guarantee that you won't cut his limits? Yes, there is such a guarantee that he can come, bet and win money. This is not prohibited. That is, in
any case, a person can win an infinite number of times. Here the question arises: if it is honestly winning, what exactly is dishonest winning besides full-time players, washing coaching, everything that contradicts
Russian legislation and at the moment, full-time players have also not been written.  In the legislation, yes, but Jesus and believed at the moment this is already happening, let's say, not that it's not unspoken, it's a well-known rule that bookmakers do not accept such people,
it's written in the terms and conditions, if having written it down, that is, we warn some others about it, let's say sanctions, yes, for cutting a person's account just like that, there is no such thing, that is, we can have such a thing.
We had a precedent where a person played and won, he won much more than he lost, that he did not lose, yes, that is, he was engaged in a small amount, but won many
times more, and after that, he does not know what came into the person's head, decided to ask to delete the account, we deleted the account, after which he returned, he had slightly different odds than he had before, for example, this
honestly, again, I will not answer this question why exactly this happens, that is, here you can refer to algorithms or some other things than an algorithms or some other things than an experienced player, yes, that is, how will we
win 20 times in a row, the more experienced the player, the theme is, the difficulty level increases and the odds become lower, it's like computer games, when the higher the level, the more difficult it is to pass, he was blocked in the end  And they did
n't block him, his prowess, he himself asked to delete the account for the first time, yes, he took the money from the West, of course, of course, he wrote about this, asked for help, there was document verification, so he withdrew the
money and asked to delete the account, just his own initiative, the module or account, when he returned, the odds were slightly different, that is, we will attribute this to the
algorithms, yes, for example, why didn't his become lower because an experienced player released homemade ones, they laughed at the novel, and in conclusion, I wanted you to novel, and in conclusion, I wanted you to talk about the RB award. On April 14th, the
bookmaker rating award will take place. What does this award mean to you? What does this award mean for the industry as a whole, for the bookmaker market? What do you think? bookmaker market? What do you think? What are your expectations? In which nominations are you
What are your expectations? In which nominations are you expecting a statuette? In all, everything is much simpler here. I really like the comparison of the bookmaker rating award itself. It's an award among betting, the same as the Oscar among
Oscar among cinema. That is, it is probably the top award that currently exists on the market and bookmakers, and accordingly, the attitude towards it is at the same level. That is, people don't just get there for no reason. There really is an
award given for something.  or merits, that is, this is not a one-time event, this is an assessment of the teams of each company over a period throughout the year regarding
period throughout the year regarding expectations. We are expecting the debut of the year expectations. We are expecting the debut of the year because we entered the most difficult period with the pandemic last year, not when sporting events had already begun to return, but
only when they stopped, it will begin to change accordingly, we are interested in an example of a reliable bookmaker reliable bookmaker and a wide line, then the odds and it is
also odds. I forgot, I why, because this is the same thing applies to the best odds, what is it called then, and the widest line in general, are
you expecting an award? Yes, of course, well, I think that the indicators that we have now, well, they deserve attention. What does the
April 14 and until the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but the fate of the award winners is decided by a competent jury or voting and audience voting and a competent jury, that is, this is such a
complex competition similar to Eurovision, even there is half, there is half inside the minister, if you can also vote, I already voted, I don't know, I voted for sure, I voted
for myself, you can vote, I bet no, can we  It's site user. I could continue to be the
the year, but I didn't find myself among the nominees. That's all. Thank you very much for coming to our studio. Sasha, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Roman, I really appreciated the invitation. It was and I got him started. Follow our reviews.
Follow the bookmaker rating site and wait for new representatives in our wait for new representatives in our studio. applause] [music]
[music] and