Guilty as charged
The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (USAO-SDNY) has revealed that ex-Lottery.com CEO Vadim Komissarov has pleaded guilty to securities fraud.
artificially inflating revenue
US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein heard Komissarov’s plea on Tuesday, in which he admitted to selling almost 300,000 Lottery.com shares in 2021 for over $600,000 after artificially inflating revenue.
The USAO-SDNY took to X to cite US Attorney Jay Clayton as stating falsifying revenue to dupe investors was “unacceptable”:
Komissarov was CEO of blank-check firm Trident Acquisitions Corp, which merged with Lottery.com in 2021 to take the lottery ticket sales company public.
The CEO, however, fiddled his accounts to push the merger through and later lied about his company’s financial standing before the FBI arrested him in February 2025.
In deep
Komissarov’s sale of Lottery.com shares in 2021 came months before his special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Trident told investors it had uncovered accounting irregularities.
“overstated unrestricted cash” by approximately $30m
After going public, Lottery.com soon ran into trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In a July 2022 filing, Trident told the SEC it had “overstated unrestricted cash” by approximately $30m and incorrectly “recognized the same amount in revenue the previous fiscal year.”
After receiving a SEC subpoena from the SEC, Komissarov called Trident’s then-Chief Financial Officer Ryan Dickinson and then-Chief Revenue Officer Matthew Clemenson, so he could “sync” his “clock” with them.
According to the USAO-SDNY, Komissarov told the former execs: “Guys, you do understand, you say that I was involved with this transaction … if Trident and me specifically knew about it, then I am in deep, deep, deep, deep water.”
Komissarov added: “So, if you come out and say that I was involved, then I am in deep shit.”
Court reports state that the vexing transaction was a bogus $9m deal cobbled together by Komissarov and made to appear like a legal commercial transaction.
Federal prosecutors also claim that Komissarov sought to obstruct the SEC’s investigation via a sworn testimony he gave the body in 2024 in which he’s accused of giving false and misleading answers about his role in the $9m deal.
Repercussions
Dickinson and Clemenson both pleaded guilty to securities fraud in May 2025, while Komissarov faces up to 20 years in prison when he attends his sentencing in June.
Lottery.com, meanwhile, survived its shaky start and is currently rebranding to the Sports Entertainment Gaming Global Corp.
The company issued a statement last month declaring that it had “completely cleaned house, implemented substantial changes to its management team, governance framework, internal control environment, and … become fully compliant with the SEC.”
