Ex-Lottery.com CEO Pleads Guilty to $30M Fraud Scheme

Dr. Annelies De Vos · 2026-02-05

So here's a story that feels like it's straight out of a Wall Street thriller, but it's all too real. The former CEO of Lottery.com, Vadim Komissarov, just stood in a New York courtroom and admitted he committed securities fraud. He's looking at up to 20 years behind bars when he's sentenced in June. It's a classic case of ambition gone terribly wrong. Komissarov was the head of a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, called Trident Acquisitions Corp. His job was to find a company to merge with and take public. He found Lottery.com, a lottery ticket sales platform. But to make that merger happen, he started cooking the books. ### The Artificially Inflated Numbers Here's what he did. He artificially inflated Lottery.com's revenue to make the company look more successful than it really was. Then, in 2021, he sold nearly 300,000 of his own shares for over $600,000. He cashed out based on a lie. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York didn't mince words. They took to social media to quote U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, who called fabricating revenue to mislead investors "unacceptable" in any market. The scheme started to unravel almost immediately after the company went public. By July 2022, Trident had to tell the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) some shocking news. They had "overstated unrestricted cash" by about $30 million. That's right—thirty million dollars that simply didn't exist. They'd also incorrectly recognized that same massive amount as revenue the year before. ### A Bogus $9 Million Deal As the SEC investigation heated up, Komissarov got desperate. Court documents reveal he tried to coordinate stories with his former CFO and Chief Revenue Officer. In a recorded call, his panic was palpable. He told them, "Guys, you do understand... if Trident and me specifically knew about it, then I am in deep, deep, deep, deep water." He even added, "So, if you come out and say that I was involved, then I am in deep shit." The center of the fraud was a completely fake $9 million deal. Komissarov cobbled it together to look like a legitimate transaction, all to prop up the company's financials. When he gave sworn testimony to the SEC in 2024, federal prosecutors say he doubled down, giving false and misleading answers about his role in that very deal. That's obstruction of justice on top of fraud. ### The Fallout and Rebranding Komissarov wasn't the only one caught. His former CFO, Ryan Dickinson, and Chief Revenue Officer, Matthew Clemenson, both pleaded guilty to securities fraud back in May 2025. The company itself, Lottery.com, is trying to move on from this scandalous chapter. They've rebranded as Sports Entertainment Gaming Global Corp. and claim to have completely cleaned house. In a statement last month, the new leadership said they've implemented substantial changes to management, governance, and internal controls. They insist they are now fully compliant with the SEC. It's a stark reminder of why transparency and honest accounting aren't just nice-to-haves—they're the absolute foundation of trust in the financial markets. For professionals in the gaming and investment space, this case is a sobering lesson in what happens when that trust is broken for personal gain.