Britain’s Gambling Commission is to prosecute Sorare, a multibillion-pound company that makes a fantasy football game promoted by the Premier League, for providing unlicensed gambling.
Sorare, which is valued at $4.3bn (£3.21bn) and counts major international investment firms such as SoftBank among its backers, will 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 charge of unlicensed gambling.
Developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort, Sorare describes itself as a fantasy sport cryptocurrency-based video game. Players can create their own “football club” with cards in the form of tradable non-fungible tokens (NFTs), competing for prizes including cash, VIP tickets and signed kits.
