SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Maksym Vitushko, General Manager of the Sports Business Division at BETER, discusses how the provider’s flagship fast-betting table tennis product has taken the market by storm, and highlights the achievements of the athletes participating in its tournaments.
SBC News: It has been seven years since BETER launched the Setka Cup, which has become the flagship discipline in its fast-paced sports portfolio. Could you walk us through how these tournaments are conducted and the growth you’ve witnessed over this period?
Maksym Vitushko: Setka Cup table tennis tournaments is a world-renowned sports platform, focused on developing sports culture and enhancing athletes’ professionalism. Over the past seven years, it has experienced remarkable growth.
The journey began with the first tournaments held in a small venue on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine. Since then, the Setka Cup has undergone significant expansion, including the launch of new arenas across various cities – and even countries, such as Moldova, the Czech Republic, and India.
The scale of the competitions has increased dramatically. In our first year, we held around 3,000 matches in total. Today, that number exceeds 11,000 matches per month. Since that very first contest, we’ve organised more than 540,000 matches in total.
Delivering such a large number of high-quality events has required significant scaling of our operations. To date, more than 2,300 athletes have competed in our tournaments. We’ve also expanded our internal team, which has been instrumental in the success of the Setka Cup. This includes our traders, technical specialists, administrative staff, integrity officers, as well as professionals in marketing, finance, legal, and other key areas.
In total, more than 300 specialists work on the Setka Cup day in and day out. Without them, it wouldn’t be the prominent and in-demand product it is today. The entire team works tirelessly around the clock to ensure that every match meets our internal quality standards, which are aligned with international requirements and best practices.
SBCN: How do you maintain integrity to ensure that player appeal is long held?
MV: Integrity is at the core of our operation, and we uphold the principles of fair play across all tournaments by integrating high-level standards maintained 24/7 by our dedicated Integrity team, composed of highly experienced experts.
We’ve developed a comprehensive approach to integrity based on several key pillars: onboarding, education and prevention, regulations, monitoring, investigation, and prosecution. We also collaborate with law enforcement agencies, sporting bodies, and federations.
Our integrity team works closely with the Prague Table Tennis Association, the Moldova Table Tennis Federation, and the Ukrainian Table Tennis Federation, and actively engages with athletes across all locations and arenas.
More recently, we began collaborating with the International Betting Integrity Association – a globally recognised organisation – to further strengthen our integrity governance through collaborative efforts in detecting and addressing suspicious betting activity, as well as the ongoing exchange of expertise and best practices in integrity monitoring.
Our pillars are implemented through holistic corporate governance, an integrity certification system, multilingual and multi-platform educational awareness programs, the Integrity BOOTCAMP program, our proprietary Integrity Incident Database, the Integrity Operations Centre, and a dedicated whistleblowing platform.
This approach has seen us pick up several awards, such as the Safer Gambling Award at this year’s European iGaming Awards. These accolades prove that we are setting the standard for others to follow when it comes to integrity and safe gambling – for our partners and their bettors, it’s further assurance that we are committed to integrity and the principles of fair play, and that we have the right mechanisms and process in place.
SBCN: Recent moves have been made in the US. What prompted this expansion, and what aspects of the Setka Cup do you believe will resonate with users?
MV: We recently made our debut in the New Jersey market after receiving the necessary approvals from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Our legal team did an excellent job working with the Division to ensure we met all regulatory requirements. It certainly helped that our sports products are globally recognised for their quality and integrity – attributes supported by our dedicated, award-winning integrity team – and that BETER is already certified in several key, highly regulated markets around the world.
The Setka Cup is now BETER’s first product to go live in the US, launching with tier-one sportsbook Bet365. We also plan to partner with additional operators in the coming months. Currently, we are in the process of securing similar approvals in other major regulated states, including Colorado, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
Why is the United States such a strategic market for us? It’s vast, has well-developed regulatory frameworks, and there is a strong demand for fast-paced betting content – exactly what BETER is known for delivering.
SBCN: We have already touched up the fast-paced nature of this, but why do you believe that fast-betting content is so appealing to bettors?
MV: Fast betting content appeals to players because it delivers plenty of action and fast bet settlement, with outcomes settled in a matter of minutes, not hours. Fast betting content is available 24/7/365 and has proved to be especially popular during periods of limited sporting action, be that during the summer break or even between matches during major tournaments.
Moreover, BETER’s content is accessible via mobile devices, which, combined with these factors, makes it highly appealing to the lucrative but hard-to-reach millennial and gen Z audiences.
In terms of the Setka Cup, the table tennis format has strong appeal, especially when compared to other sports like cricket, football or futsal. The game itself is fast paced, with matches usually lasting between 20 and 25 minutes. This allows bettors to experience the excitement of the game alongside rapid bet settlement and payouts. The format also makes it easy to host multiple matches simultaneously, 24/7/365.
From a betting perspective, the rapid pace of table tennis – where scores change every few seconds – enables us to offer a wider range of markets compared to other sports. The absence of long breaks between halves or periods helps maintain high levels of engagement.
Additionally, all Setka Cup matches are provided with 24/7 live streams, which are available not only on operators’ platforms but also across all Setka Cup social media channels. This broad accessibility makes the content more entertaining and significantly more engaging.
Finally, the simplicity of table tennis rules and straightforward betting markets – such as predicting the winner of a point, set, or match – makes it easy for bettors to get involved quickly and confidently.
SBCN: More than 2,300 athletes have participated in Setka Cup contests. Who are these athletes – and are there any prominent names from the world of table tennis among them?
MV: Over the past seven years, we have seen a wide range of athletes take part in Setka Cup tournaments, from former amateurs to internationally ranked masters of the sport and even Olympic athletes.
One notable example is Vladyslav Ursu, vice-champion of the European Championship under 21, who represented Moldova at the Olympic Games in Paris, while another standout athlete is Anton Molochko, the 2025 Champion of Ukraine. We asked Anton why he decided to take part in the Setka Cup, and this is what he said:
“I decided to take part in Setka Cup tournaments because it’s a great opportunity to improve my level of play while also contributing to developing one of the best and well-established table tennis tournaments in the industry.
“What motivates me to participate in this type of tournament is my desire to grow professionally and reach new heights in table tennis — something that isn’t possible without competing against strong athletes, like those at Setka Cup.”
I’d also like to give special recognition to the Setka Cup Women’s team, which has earned top honours in the Ukrainian Championship for two consecutive years, winning the Ukrainian Table Tennis Cup in 2023.
At the heart of the Setka Cup’s continued growth and global recognition are the athletes who dedicate themselves to the sport every day. It’s a true honour to work with such committed professionals – national champions, international competitors, and rising stars – who bring passion, discipline, and excellence to the table.
Their unwavering dedication not only elevates the level of competition but also strengthens the integrity and appeal of the Setka Cup. We’re proud to provide a place where these athletes can thrive and inspire the next generation of table tennis talent.
