Who is James Bord, Poker Champion Leading Bid for Sheffield Wednesday FC?
The chosen bidder to save Sheffield Wednesday, the struggling English Championship soccer team, is former World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) champion James Bord.
After the first bidding process concluded, the club's administrators stated last Wednesday that they had awarded preferred-bidder status to an unidentified consortium, which is now thought to be fronted by Bord.
The members of Bord's consortium and the source of the funding were not immediately made public.
Sheffield Wednesday, also referred to as the Owls, are at the bottom of the Championship, the second division of English soccer. Due to ongoing financial difficulties under owner Dejphon Chansiri, the club has received two point reductions since going into administration, a phrase similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US. Because of this, it is 30 points behind the closest team, and relegation to the third division appears certain.
James Bord: Our Knowledge
Bord, who is located in Las Vegas, led a group that successfully acquired Scottish club Dunfermline in early 2025. He also owns a minority stake in Cordoba CF, a Spanish La Liga 2 team.
In order to follow his passions for poker and sports betting, Bord, a former Citigroup banker, left the financial industry in his mid-20s. He became the first British champion of the competition when he won the WSOPE main event in 2010 for $1,313,611. He also operated the Poker Farm, a player training and staking business, at the time.
Bord founded Short Circuit Science, a San Francisco-based business that specializes in climate adaption studies, medical prescription technology, and sports data analytics.
He was employed by Tony Bloom in the mid-to-late 2000s. StarLizard, his gambling syndicate and advisory firm, has grown to be one of the most prosperous soccer betting businesses. Brighton and Hove Albion, an English Premier League (EPL) side, is owned by Bloom.
Bord eventually left StarLizard to work for Smartodds, a different sports betting fund run by Matthew Benham, a former employee of Bloom. Later on, Benham invested in the Matchbook betting exchange and assumed leadership of Brentford FC, his childhood team, in 2012.
Last Obstacles
Bloom, Benham, and now Bord are part of a tiny but powerful group that has applied the exacting, data-driven techniques that helped them succeed in professional gambling to ownership and strategy in soccer.
The struggling Owls are hoping that Bord's statistics can help them return to their previous level of success. There are still a few obstacles to overcome before that. He still needs to pass the Owners and Directors' test (ODT) of the EFL, which prohibits those who control, own, or have a substantial stake in a betting company if doing so would put them in conflict with soccer.
Because of actual or perceived worries that someone would use club ownership to influence or take advantage of betting outcomes, EFL officials are additionally wary of owners with extensive knowledge of betting markets.
