Britain's Gambling Commission is to prosecute Sorare, a multi-million pound company that creates a fantasy football game promoted by the Premier Leaguefor providing unlicensed gambling.
Sorare, which is valued at $4.3bn (£3.21bn) and counts major international investment firms such as SoftBank among its backers, is due to appear in court on 4 October in what will be an extremely rare use of the gambling regulator’s prosecutorial powers. The company denies the allegation of unlicensed gambling.
Developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort, Sorare describes itself as a cryptocurrency-based fantasy sports video game. Players can create their own “football club” with cards in the form of tradable currencies. Non-fungible tokens (NFT)competing for prizes including cash, VIP tickets and signed kits.
The commission said in October 2021 that it was investigating whether products provided by the Paris-based company constituted online gambling and required a license.
Almost exactly two years later, the regulator has accused the company of offering unlicensed gambling and the company is due to appear before Birmingham Magistrates' Court.
Since its creation in 2005, the Game The Commission is believed to have used its prosecutorial powers only once, in a fraud case involving a man who had drugged dogs to fix greyhound races.
A Sorare spokesperson said: “We are aware of the claims made by the Gambling Commission and have instructed our UK lawyer to challenge them. We firmly deny any claim that Sorare is a gambling product under UK law.
“The commission has misunderstood our activity and wrongly determined that gambling laws apply to Sorare. We are unable to comment further while the legal proceedings are ongoing.”
Sorare's website boasts partnerships with all major leagues and 317 clubs around the world, including all Premier League clubs and European giants such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
It has promoted its games through an advertising campaign featuring French forward Kylian Mbappé and also claims partnerships in the United States with the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball.
In 2023, the Premier League granted Sorare a four-year licence to sell digital sports cards of players from all 20 Premier League clubs, a deal Sky News said at the time could be worth £30m a year.
A section of the Premier League website lists Sorare among the league's partners.
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The site claims that Sorare also counts athletes Serena Williams, Lionel Messi, Zinedine Zidane, Rio Ferdinand, Antoine Griezmann, Gerard Piqué, Blake Griffin and Rudy Gobert among its investors, ambassadors and advisors.
The Premier League website also describes Sorare as one of Europe’s fastest-growing startups, pointing to a recent $680m (£508m) fundraising effort that valued the company at $4.3bn.
Sorare investors include SoftBank, Accel and Benchmark.
The company, which employs 160 people in New York and Paris, also boasts 3 million users in 180 markets.
The Gambling Commission said it had accused Sorare of “offering unlicensed gambling facilities to consumers in Great Britain” but could not comment further.
The Guardian has contacted the Premier League for comment and has attempted to reach Sorare and its founders.
