Poland’s Totalizator Sportowy has decided to let go of Szymon Gawryszczak following the culmination of a public scandal.
Gawryszczak has served as Vice President of the operator’s Management Board, responsible for sales and marketing, since 2024. He was dismissed on the grounds that Totalizator Sportowy wanted to protect its public image.
He was first suspended from the role back in April after public scrutiny of him was rapidly mounting amid a series of allegations that surfaced in local media outlets.
While the Totalizator drew a clean line between these reports and its decision, it is hard not to think that the public claims made against him did not play at least a slight role in his departure.
The allegations include conflict of interest and leveraging his political ties to propagate against opponents of the now-defunct center-right Civic Platform (PO) party, which was led by PM Donald Tusk until it was dissolved in 2025.
Arguably, the most detrimental piece for his career was published by Wirtualna Polska in March last year. The investigation linked Gawryszczak to a social media page with a substantial following posting PO-linked propaganda.
A follow-up article alleged that the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) had been investigating assets linked to Gawryszczak, identifying irregularities in his submitted declarations and his failure to provide convincing explanations for them.
Gawryszczak claims conspiracy
Following the Totalizator’s decision, Gawryszczak has taken to LinkedIn to staunchly defend his position. He asserted that the Wirtualna Polska article is based on inaccurate information, with the CBA itself having previously corrected an error in its initial findings.
He said: “The CBA did not find any conflict of interest, no financial gain, no action to the detriment of Totalizator Sportowy. The prosecutor’s office conducted a verification procedure and handed the files back to the CBA.
“The Supervisory Board – the same body that suspended me – publicly stated that the media allegations were not related to the content of the CBA’s post-audit conclusion.”
Gawryszczak alluded to a wider conspiracy being orchestrated against him, with his comments suggesting that he’s being targeted because of how vocal he is of the social benefits Totalizator Sportowy’s monopoly over iGaming has for society.
“I also can’t help but notice a certain correlation. The more often I spoke publicly about the value of the state’s monopoly on online casinos, about the billions that go to the budget and finance Polish sport, about why the state should maintain a strong position here – the more intense the attacks on me became. I leave this observation without comment.”
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