Sorare, the European fantasy football, and collectible online platform are to be investigated by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). Currently, they do not hold a UK license and operate outside of the UK gambling regulations.
About Sorare
Sorare was developed back in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort and buys’ sells and trades players in a virtual football team.The UKGC believes because of the nature of the company they may be required to have a gambling license if the product offered by Sorare is in fact classed as gambling? Sorare does not participate in traditional sports gambling, but it’s thought that trading cards digitally, with values dictated by a player’s performance, may be classified as gambling.
Not Regulated Gambling
In its defense, Sorare is confident the product they provide is not classed as ‘regulated gambling’ and had consulted legal experts as the company was being set up. They said “We will always engage and have an open dialogue with authorities who reach out to us to learn more about our game. We believe this is the responsible way to grow our game and community globally.” Sorare has seen rapid expansion over the last few months with users growing to an all-time high of 600,000 and sales peaking around ¢150m since the beginning of 2021. The increase in traffic to Sorare is believed to be because of the NFT market taking off. Sales hit an all-time high in the first 6 months of the year topping ¢2.5b.
Highly Ambitious
Sorare has already sealed partnerships with La Liga of Spain and the two Top divisions of the German Bundesliga. Sorare is an ambitious company whose ultimate goal would be to seal deals with 20 of the biggest football leagues around the world.The expansion of the company had not gone unnoticed by the UK regulator, and last week they warned users 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.”Sorare has repeatedly stated they do not take part in gambling activities because they are not in the same category as gambling in general.