Roman Semiokhin

Biography

Roman Semiokhin is a Russian businessman who built a multi-billion dollar fortune on the online bookmakers 1xBet and 1xStavka. In 2020, the entrepreneur appeared in a criminal case on the illegal organization of gambling and was on the international wanted list, but he got away with it.

Childhood and youth

Roman was born in 1977 in Bryansk. The boy was orphaned early, so he grew up with his grandmother, the family lived modestly. At school, Semiokhin studied averagely, but he loved sports: he attended martial arts training and won prizes in hand-to-hand combat competitions held in his native region.

Having received a certificate of secondary education in the mid-90s, Roman entered the Faculty of Management of the Bryansk State Technical University, developed computer programs. Already in the 2nd year, the student teamed up with friends and opened the first business - a video rental point.

Then Semiokhin was engaged in trade, owned a pawnshop and a computer club. Thanks to the last case, Roman thought about betting: often the club made sports bets that were many times higher than the income received from gamers. So the native of Bryansk came up with the idea to start a business, which later made him a billionaire.

Business

Roman opened his first betting shop at the age of 30 under the Fonbet franchise. After 5 years, the Semiokhin network already consisted of 350 points, and the entrepreneur decided to create his own resource. This is how the 1xBet brand appeared, and at first Roman worked with businessman Alexander Mironov. Later, the paths of former colleagues diverged, in 2014 Semiokhin re-registered the documentation only for himself. By that time, the network already consisted of 1000 points, at the same time the 1xBet website appeared, which became a legal analogue of 1xBet.

Roman Semiokhin, Sergey Karshkov and Dmitry Kazorin / Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for t

The 1xBet resource itself has not received a license, therefore it is banned in the Russian Federation and other countries, which does not prevent the site from accepting bets and making money at online casinos through numerous “mirrors”. The bookmaker spends a lot on PR: in the first quarter of 2019, 1xBet was among the top three customers of advertising (together with Google and PepsiCo), mainly on sites with pirated videos. By the way, the resource itself invests in shooting and translating videos, films and TV shows, which takes up to half a million rubles a month.