Dream11 acquires fantasy platform Sixer

Real-money gaming company Dream11 has acquired Sixer, a platform that deals in fantasy cricket stocks. Users on the platform can buy stocks related to the cricketers of their liking, with the value of the stocks going up or down depending on the real-life performance of the player.

Sixer founder Amay Makhija announced the acquisition in an email to users of the platform on September 26. ET has seen the email.

Financial terms of the deal and the team size of Sixer weren’t available. Dream11 declined to comment.

Sixer was founded in 2018. The deal was first reported by news website Inc42.

The news comes at a time when the industry is grappling with a 28% GST imposed on real-money gaming. Over the past two weeks, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence has issued over a dozen show cause notices to gaming platforms, including Dream11, over pending taxes running into tens of thousands of crore rupees.

Sixer was founded in 2018. The development was first reported by news website Inc42.

“There is no other company in the world that is more synonymous with fantasy sports than Dream11. From our earliest conversations, Dream11 has highly valued the cutting edge innovation that Sixer’s sports market brings and similarly believes that Sixer can be the future of fantasy sports,” Makhija added in the email.

ET reported on October 4 that Dream11, the largest player in the fantasy gaming ecosystem in the country, had been hit with a tax notice of over Rs 28,000 crore, based on “bets” placed on the platform over the past few years. A number of other real money gaming firms have also been sent notices, with Games24x7 Pvt Ltd and its affiliates receiving a notice running over Rs 20,000 crore.

Executives in the real-money gaming industry estimated that the calculation used by the DGGI, which involves taxation of a deposit amount every time it is “rotated” through a game – i.e. each time a bet is made – could lead to the firms’ tax liability rising by 1,300%-1,400% on a yearly basis. In comparison, these platforms have so far been paying an 18% tax on the commission charged on player deposits.

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