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UKGC issues warning over fantasy football NFT start-up Sorare
Consumer information notice comes as heavily backed French tech ‘unicorn’ hires senior US igaming executives from BetMGM and DraftKings
Julian Rogers
11 October 2021

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has warned the public that Sorare – a fantasy football platform where users trade digital collectibles – does not hold a UK gambling licence.

In a ‘consumer information notice’, the Birmingham-based regulator announced that it would be investigating whether Sorare requires an operating licence and if the product equates to gambling.

The notice read: “It has come to our attention the football-themed website, Sorare.com, is available to consumers in Great Britain. Sorare.com is not licensed by the Gambling Commission.

“This means that any activity completed on the site by consumers in Great Britain is outside of the gambling regulations that a licensed operator should comply with.”

The statement continued: “Consumers are being advised to consider this information when deciding whether or not to interact with the site.

“The Gambling Commission is currently carrying out enquiries into the company to establish whether Sorare.com requires an operating licence or whether the services it provides do not constitute gambling.”

Yet when UKGC posted a Twitter link directing its 11,800 followers to the notice on its website, the tweet was met with derision from those angered by the collapse of Football Index and what they see as the regulator’s inaction beforehand.

“Are you going to regulate another business you don’t understand?” one Twitter user wrote, while another said: “Gambling Commission been told to look busy.”

Others mocked the fact the UKGC said it had “come to our attention” when Sorare has been available to UK consumers since 2019.

A reason for the warning could be that the UKGC wants to be seen to be proactive in the wake of the independent review into the regulation of Football Index’s parent company, BetIndex, which would have made for uncomfortable reading for the regulator.

We have published a consumer information notice regarding the football-themed website @SorareHQ, which is not licensed by the Gambling Commission to operate in Great Britain. Follow the link to read more https://t.co/FwGF0wjPaq pic.twitter.com/ZcCKRDzB0r

— Gambling Commission (@GamRegGB) October 8, 2021

Nevertheless, the UKGC will be concerned that some Football Index customers have switched from a regulated product which ultimately collapsed, leaving many tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket, to one which isn’t regulated at all.

Founded in 2018, Sorare allows users to buy and trade football playing cards, which are registered as a unique token on the Ethereum blockchain, as well as manage their squad of players and earn points based on on-field performances.

As of 21 September, $150m-worth of cards had been traded across 170 countries on the platform since January, while the number of active paying users rocketed 34x between Q2 2021 and Q2 2020.

Sorare has partnered with hundreds of football organisations, including Europe’s top clubs such as Juventus, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Inter Milan and Liverpool.

In September, the Paris-headquartered start-up secured $680m in a Series B funding round led by Japanese fintech giant SoftBank, meaning the tech unicorn’s valuation climbed to $4.3bn.

According to Sorare, which has Gerard Piqué, Antoine Griezmann and Rio Ferdinand as investors, this was Europe’s largest ever Series B round.

Sorare co-founder and CEO Nicolas Julia

And last week, on 7 October, Sportico revealed that Ryan Spoon had been recruited as COO and that Michael Meltzer had been appointed as the new head of business development.

Spoon arrives from BetMGM where he also served as COO for almost a year. Prior to that, he was SVP of digital and social at ESPN in Connecticut for more than eight years.

Meanwhile, Meltzer has spent the past six-and-a-half years as director of strategic ventures at DraftKings.

Both will be based out of Sorare’s planned US base and will help push the platform into the North American market.

Headed up by co-founder and CEO Nicolas Julia, Sorare has ridden the wave of interest in digital collectibles underpinned by blockchain technology in the past 18 months.

Total worldwide NFT sales hit $2.5bn in the first half of 2021, up from $13.7m in the first six months of 2020.

In July, DraftKings unveiled DraftKings Marketplace, a platform allowing users to trade digital sports collectibles.

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