SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The UK competition watchdog has uncovered ‘competition concerns’ as a part of its long-running investigation into SpreadEx’s acquisition of Sporting Index Ltd.
SpreadEx secured terms to acquire Sporting Index, its principal rival in the UK spread betting market, from the company’s then-owner Groupe FDJ (now FDJ United) in November 2023.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) subsequently launched an investigation into whether this takeover breached competition laws by enabling SpreadEx to secure a market dominant position in spread betting.
The Enterprise Act of 2002 is the main piece of legislation which the CMA is concerned SpreadEx may have breached, with the authority wanting to ensure that Sporting Index’s platform remains separate from the SpreadEx platform.
Although the authority has previously granted the company some exemptions to the usual rules of the Enterprise Act, such as allowing its customer services team to access Sporting Index data and meet regulatory obligations, its concerns around competition breaches remained.
On 4 March, the regulator established a remittal committee tasked with examining the acquisition’s compliance with competition laws. The following day, the CMA served SpreadEx an order under the Enterprise Act, and today’s announcement concerns the conclusion of the remittal investigation.
The order stated that the “creation of that situation (the merger) has resulted, or may be expected to result, in a substantial lessening of competition’. The order added that the CMA ‘should take action to remedy’ this lessening of competition and any adverse effects that may result from it.
In today’s announcement, the CMA further clarified the situation: “The CMA has provisionally found competition concerns as part of its remittal investigation of the completed acquisition by Spreadex Limited of the B2C business of Sporting Index Limited.”
The regulator has set a date of 19 June 2025 for SpreadEx to submit responses to the notice of possible remedies, and 26 June 2025 for the firm to submit responses to the remittal’s provisional findings.
