By Paul Nicholson
October 15 – Oulala.com, the daily fantasy football platform, has unveiled a new version of its site which is available to consumers in the UK for the very first time. The monetised site allows users to buy into games and play daily and in ‘real time’.
The Malta-based daily fantasy football platform Oulala.com is closing in on a £7 million round of funding over the next 12 months and has just launched its site into the UK gaming market with a new iteration of its site.
Founded by entrepreneurs Valery Bollier (pictured left) and Benjamin Carlotti, Oulala has secured more than £1.5 million in investment to date from business organisations and business angels including Google.
The Oulala version of fantasy football is a daily game based on skill, utilising a scoring system created using historical data provided by Opta and more than 70 different data criteria. Users start with €100 million in virtual spending money and can choose from over 2,500 players. Users can make ‘real time’ changes to their teams to create a realistic managerial experience.
Oulala users can compete either in head to head leagues – which can either be private or public – or they can join an existing contest from the Oulala game lobby menu. Users entering into a league can decide on the buy-in sum for that league (between €1 and €200) as well as how the prize pool will be distributed.
Director and investor Graham Martin, who became a shareholder via Cardinal House Group, said: “The Oulala team have developed the next stage in Fantasy Sports entertainment so it was without hesitation for us to invest in this business… we expect to be launching Oulala Australasia before the New Year in conjunction with various existing Asian media partners.”
‘Insider trading’
Monetised fantasy games in the US only last week caused an outcry after accusations of “insider trading” after an employee at DraftKings won $350,000 at a rival site, FanDuel, after data was inadvertently released before the start of the third week of NFL games. Employees were allegedly placing bets using information not generally available to the public.
The multi-million dollar Fanatsy sports market in the US is unregulated.
The news prompted a strong statement from Chris Eaton, Executive Director of Sport Integrity for the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS), who said: “Fantasy sports are, plain and simple, sport betting. Despite the subtle differences in the definition between the two industries, it is important not to disguise the clear relationship between fantasy sport and sport betting – and the need for both to be legalised and supervised by competent, independent and well-resourced regulators.
“This example of ‘insider trading’ within the U.S. fantasy realm has underlined the clear and urgent need for government intervention in what is currently an opaque and under-regulated industry. Self-regulation in the exploding market will not work. If it continues, there is a very real threat that organised crime and corruption will take hold and fund wider criminal activities…
“The real lesson in this fantasy “scandal” is to be honest about sport betting, to not disguise it or hide it, and to force the industry into public regulation and social compliance.”
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