A note on sourcing: everything below is drawn from public media reports, posts in industry Telegram channels, and public statements from market participants. As of this update, Royal Partners still hasn't issued an official statement on the criminal case. We attribute each claim to its source and aren't drawing our own conclusions about anyone's guilt or how a possible deal might play out.
Short answer: has it shut down?
No, not formally — and in late July the company even officially announced it was resuming traffic acceptance across all GEOs. That doesn't mean affiliate trust has been restored, though: the company's affiliate director remains in custody, part of its management team scattered to other programs after the May raids, and of the payouts owed, only the May backlog has been confirmed cleared — even though it's now late July. There's also the unresolved 1win buyout offer hanging over the story — neither the terms nor the fact of any negotiations have been confirmed by anyone.
Here's the sequence of what happened, in order.
Timeline of events
Industry Telegram channels reported raids on at least one Royal Partners office in Minsk. Unofficial accounts describe authorities arriving in the morning, some staff being detained, and equipment being removed. No official confirmation followed.
Sources: Reform.news, Nashaniva.com, UDF.nameNew details emerged: the operation was reportedly carried out by the Financial Investigations Department and a riot police unit. Raids extended beyond offices to the homes of some employees, including rank-and-file staff. Equipment was seized, including from private apartments. Some detainees were later released; others were not.
Source: PressAff, citing industry Telegram channelsNews of the Minsk office raid reached AffPapa, an international iGaming platform — meaning the story spread beyond the Russian-speaking affiliate market and became visible to the global industry.
Source: dev.bySources close to the situation say part of May's salaries and advances were paid to staff — later than usual, and not to everyone. The casinos and the affiliate program stayed online and kept accepting deposits, but withdrawals ran into problems, and there was no one left to confirm or comment on them from the company's side.
Source: Kompromat Portal, citing staff and sources familiar with the situationIt emerged that the company's affiliate director (referred to in coverage as Erdem) remains in pretrial detention, with his custody extended. Under Belarusian criminal procedure, extending custody at this stage typically signals that formal charges have already been filed. Meanwhile, the group's casinos kept operating and accepting deposits as if nothing had happened. UDF.name raised an obvious question the same day: if the outcome of a high-profile law enforcement operation is just the company going back to business as usual, what did investigators actually accomplish — besides a couple of weeks of headlines? Industry outlet Casino Pilot PRO, citing the trade source R2B, independently drew the same conclusion — that the extended detention likely means Erdem's status has shifted from "suspect" to formally "charged."
Sources: UDF.name, the "General SVR" Telegram channel, Casino Pilot PRO citing R2BAn unexpected turn in the story. Posting to his Telegram channel, Owner 1win — identifying himself as the founder and co-owner of the international 1win brand, Sergey Chernykh — published a short statement: he'd seen the news about Royal Partners' troubles, doesn't personally know anyone on the team, and was writing publicly because he's open to discussing either buying the company outright or acquiring individual assets or business lines. He listed his personal Telegram account for anyone interested in getting in touch.
No public response ever followed from Royal Partners, from Galaktika N.V., or from any other potential buyer. This remains a one-sided public offer rather than an announced deal — a familiar pattern for distressed iGaming assets, where competitors stake a public claim to interest so they're first in line if owners or creditors come looking for a buyer.
Source: Owner 1win Telegram channel (@owner1w), post dated June 19, 2026Royal Partners posted an announcement in its official Telegram channel saying it had finished reconciling traffic and was beginning to settle its financial obligations, with a timeline of no more than three weeks. A support bot, @royalpartners_support_bot, was opened for payout questions. The company also noted that traffic credited after May 27 isn't guaranteed payment.
According to several affiliates in Russian-speaking affiliate chats, Royal Partners actually started clearing its May debts — partially, but for real: people reported money landing in their accounts. The pace was slow and there was a queue, but there was movement. It was the first positive signal after nearly a month of silence and uncertainty.
Source: affiliate reports in industry Telegram chats (not independently verified)A parallel trend emerged: several Royal Partners managers, according to available reports, moved to other companies and started inviting their affiliates to switch traffic to new brands. This is standard practice during any affiliate program crisis — managers leave and take their book of business with them. For affiliates, that means the offer could be a reasonable fallback, but it's worth evaluating deliberately, by the usual criteria, rather than out of loyalty to a familiar manager alone.
Source: affiliate community reportsNo new public details about the Royal Partners case had emerged since late June: no resolution to the affiliate director's case, no official statement from Royal Partners or Galaktika N.V., and no response — confirming or denying — to 1win's buyout offer. The brands kept accepting deposits, and affiliate payouts continued to trickle in, slowly. The story sat in limbo: no fresh escalation, but no resolution either. That in itself was telling — as Casino Pilot PRO noted in its breakdown of the case, CIS regulators increasingly care less about where a player is sitting and more about where a company's back office and payment infrastructure physically live, which suggests cases like this one won't stay isolated.
Vodka Money editorial team, based on available public sources, including Casino Pilot PROA new positive shift. Industry Telegram channels saw a growing number of affiliates reporting that Royal Partners was clearing payouts for two months at once — May and June. One industry channel put it directly: more and more affiliates were reporting Royal Partners closing out both May and June debts that day, with hopes that everyone would be paid in full by the end of the week. There was still no official confirmation from Royal Partners itself at that point, but the payout pace had clearly picked up compared to late June, when only a partial May settlement was being reported.
Royal Partners' official Telegram channel published a post titled "Current Terms for Working with Royal Partners": the company said it was open to accepting traffic across all GEOs, listed a current lineup of 19 exclusive offers, confirmed it was working under its usual flexible models, and said RevShare terms of up to 60% remained in place. Affiliates were told to reach out to their personal manager or support to discuss rates for their sources and get access to offers.
On the surface, this reads as a signal that the company is back to business as usual. But affiliate trust in the announcement remains low, for a few reasons. First, the only publicly confirmed payout is May's — reports of the June debt being cleared (see the July 15 entry) come from affiliates in chats, not from the company itself, and Royal Partners still hasn't officially confirmed it, even though it's now late July. Second, because of the May raids and the affiliate director's arrest, part of the company's management team has, according to affiliate-community reports, already scattered to other programs — meaning some existing partners simply don't have a steady point of contact left at Royal Partners to negotiate rates with. Third, it's still an open question who is actually running the company while part of its staff remains in custody. The traffic-launch announcement on its own doesn't answer any of these questions.
Source: Royal Partners' official Telegram channel, post dated July 25, 2026The Telegram channel "VChK-OGPU" published a post claiming a new twist: that Royal Partners clients and "affiliated structures" are now being called in for questioning one by one, with some facing searches — while, according to the post, the company itself is no longer being touched, prompting questions among the "affected" about a possible quiet arrangement between Royal Partners and law enforcement.
Editorial caveat. There is no independent confirmation of this claim as of publication — not from official authorities, nor from the outlets that covered the May raids in detail (Reform.news, Nasha Niva, UDF.name, PressAff). Notably, near-identical text began circulating the same day across dozens of Telegram channels that have never previously covered gambling or affiliate topics at all — a pattern typically associated with paid placement rather than organic reporting. It's plausible this is a coordinated campaign, for instance by competitors looking to finish off Royal Partners' weakened reputation and poach remaining partners while the company can't publicly respond. We're treating this as unverified and will update this article if independent sources emerge, in either direction.
Source: Telegram channel "VChK-OGPU", post dated July 27, 2026 — no independent confirmation, needs verificationWho's behind the brands, and where the payment provider fits in
To understand the scale of this, the business structure matters. Royal Partners is an affiliate network and direct advertiser promoting a portfolio of 20+ casino brands operated by Galaktika N.V. The portfolio includes IZZI, ROX, FRESH, SOL, JET, STARDA, LEGZO, VOLNA, DRIP, MONRO, 1GO, LEX, GIZBO, IRWIN, and others — mostly targeting Russian-speaking players across the CIS.
The affiliate network's offices and those of its associated payment provider, Paygo, are both based in Minsk. According to sources, it's the payment provider's operations that likely drew law enforcement's attention first — though no official charges have been formally articulated. Tax issues and possible GEO-related restrictions are among the theories circulating, but none are confirmed at this point.
Why this matters even if you've never worked with anyone based in Minsk: a large share of CIS gambling's back-end infrastructure — payment processing, back offices, and in many cases part of the management team — has historically been based in Belarus, even when the casino brands themselves are legally registered in Curaçao or another offshore jurisdiction. A problem at one link in that chain — the payment provider or the affiliate network — can stall payouts even where the casino brand itself is technically still running.
Who's the potential buyer, and should affiliates be cheering for a buyout
1win is one of the most recognizable brands in CIS gambling, but the holding company has its own complicated reputation. According to Russian media, alleged 1win beneficiary Sergey Chernykh is wanted in Kazakhstan and Mexico in connection with cases tied to organizing illegal gambling activity, and the outlet Izvestia previously reported that he may be behind the Owner 1win Telegram channel — the same channel the Royal Partners buyout offer came from.
That doesn't mean the offer should be written off as fake or a PR stunt — large iGaming holding companies do regularly buy up distressed competitors' assets: player databases, licenses, brands, teams. But affiliates should hold two things in mind at once: first, neither the existence of negotiations nor any terms have been officially confirmed by anyone; second, even if a deal goes through, the new owner of the brands is itself under regulatory scrutiny in several countries — meaning a change of ownership wouldn't, by itself, guarantee affiliates either payout stability or transparency.
What this actually means for Royal Partners affiliates
| Question | Status as of this update |
|---|---|
| Are the casinos operating? | Yes, deposits are accepted and sites are accessible |
| Is the affiliate program running? | Yes — the company officially announced it was resuming traffic acceptance across all GEOs (post dated July 25), though communication on the other open questions remains unclear |
| Are affiliates getting paid? | Only the May backlog is officially confirmed as cleared. Affiliate reports of June also being paid out (from mid-July onward) have not been officially confirmed by the company — even though it's now late July |
| Who's authorizing payouts? | Reportedly difficult — some authorized signers are in custody or unreachable |
| Is there a criminal case? | Not officially commented on by authorities, but the extended detention of the affiliate director — and assessments from industry outlets — suggest his status has likely shifted from "suspect" to "charged" |
| Are managers reachable? | Partially. According to affiliate-community reports, part of the management team moved to other companies after the May raids |
| Is the company being sold? | There's a public buyout offer from 1win's founder, but any negotiations — if they're happening at all — haven't been confirmed by either side |
If you're sending traffic to Royal Partners brands, the sensible move right now isn't panic — it's a level-headed risk assessment:
- Don't mistake the announcement for restored trust. The company has announced it's open for traffic with solid RevShare terms — but that's a statement of willingness to accept new traffic, not a report of settled obligations. Only the May debt is officially confirmed, even though it's now late July.
- Keep records of everything. Dashboard screenshots, correspondence with managers, tracker data — in case you need to document what you're owed later, including if the company changes hands or your point of contact changes.
- Confirm who your manager actually is right now. Given the outflow of staff after the May raids, some of your previous contacts may no longer be there — check before you commit new traffic that someone on the other end is actually accountable for the arrangement.
- Hold off on putting significant new budget into traffic for these brands until June and subsequent payouts are officially confirmed, especially if you're running paid traffic that depends on a fast payback cycle.
- Start testing a second program in parallel so your income isn't tied to one program that's formally back online but still working through the fallout of the crisis.
Why this is a structural risk, not a one-off
Royal Partners isn't the first — and probably won't be the last — case of a major CIS-focused gambling affiliate network running into sudden trouble because of regulatory or law-enforcement action in the country where its back office physically sits. For an affiliate or media buyer, the takeaway is simple but important: income tied to a single program is a risk, even when the terms look great on paper.
That doesn't mean juggling a dozen programs at once. But having at least one alternative program already registered and tested ahead of time is a reasonable safeguard. If something like the May raids happens again — and given what's happened to other large CIS brands in the past, there's enough precedent to take that seriously — you'll already have a backup income channel instead of scrambling to find a new program under pressure.
Diversify your income now
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Frequently Asked Questions
Has Royal Partners shut down?
No. The affiliate network and the casino brands it promotes are still accepting player deposits, and in late July the company even announced it was resuming traffic acceptance across all GEOs. But trust among affiliates remains low: part of its leadership is still in custody following the May 2026 raids on its Minsk offices, and of the payouts owed, the company has only confirmed clearing its May backlog — even though it's now late July.
Is it true that Royal Partners is being sold?
There's been no official sale announcement. What's known is that 1win founder Sergey Chernykh publicly offered to buy the company outright or acquire individual assets, posting the offer to his Telegram channel and inviting direct contact. Royal Partners hasn't responded publicly, so there's no basis yet to treat a deal as settled or even agreed upon.
Why were Royal Partners' offices raided?
Belarusian authorities have not disclosed an official reason. According to media reports, the operation was carried out by the Financial Investigations Department and a special police unit, and investigators' interest is believed to be connected to the Minsk-based payment provider Paygo.
Is Royal Partners still paying out?
Partially. The company has confirmed clearing its May backlog and, in late July, announced it was resuming traffic acceptance across all GEOs with RevShare up to 60%. But it still hasn't officially confirmed June payouts, even though it earlier promised to settle obligations within three weeks. Given that it's now late July and only the May debt has been officially confirmed as cleared, affiliates still have real questions about payout speed and transparency. A support bot, @royalpartners_support_bot, is handling payout questions.
Royal Partners managers are inviting affiliates to switch to other programs — should I take them up on it?
That's standard practice during any affiliate program crisis: some managers leave and bring their affiliate base with them, and after the May raids this outflow of managers from Royal Partners was especially noticeable. The offer can be perfectly reasonable if you've known and trusted that manager for a while. But evaluate it by the usual criteria — what program, what brands, what RevShare or CPA terms, what payout history. It's worth signing up and testing in parallel rather than pulling all your traffic over at once.
Should I keep sending traffic to Royal Partners brands?
That's an individual call, but the situation clearly raises the risk profile: delayed payouts, uncertainty over who can authorize them, an unresolved criminal case, a wave of managers leaving, and an unclear outlook for a possible sale. Even the late-July announcement about resuming traffic doesn't change the fact that June payouts still haven't been officially confirmed. Many affiliates in this position choose to bring a second program online so their income doesn't depend on a single source.
Is it true that Royal Partners clients and affiliates are being interrogated?
That's what a July 27, 2026 post from the Telegram channel "VChK-OGPU" claims, but there's no independent confirmation — not from official authorities, nor from other outlets that covered the May raids in detail. The same text also appeared the same day across dozens of Telegram channels that had never previously covered gambling, which looks more like coordinated paid placement than an organic leak. We consider this unverified and recommend not acting on it until independent sources confirm it.
This article is based on reporting from public outlets (Reform.news, Nashaniva.com, UDF.name, dev.by, PressAff, Kompromat Portal, Casino Pilot PRO citing R2B) and public statements in industry Telegram channels (including Owner 1win, Royal Partners' official channel, and the "VChK-OGPU" channel — the latter's claims remain unconfirmed), and is updated as new information becomes available. Last updated: July 29, 2026. If you have current information about the situation, factual corrections are welcome via our contact channels.