Published on Jul 10, 2025
The world’s largest online chess platform, Chess.com, is abusing its dominance through a host of anticompetitive practices, including killer acquisitions, price discrimination and exclusivity clauses, according to a complaint filed with the European Commission by former world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik.
Kramnik, a Russian grandmaster based in Switzerland, told The Capitol Forum that he filed his complaint against Chess.com with the EU enforcer on May 20. An EC spokesperson confirmed the agency is assessing the allegations in line with standard procedure.
“I don’t want to destroy the company – I just want all the, in my opinion, multiple misconducts happening nowadays to be stopped so we come back to a normal, transparent and fair world of chess,” said Kramnik, who held the world title from 2000 to 2007.
Chess.com is considered the largest platform globally for playing online games of chess, hosting tournaments with cash prizes up to $500,000. It’s not required to publish user statistics, but its website shows over 216 million members and this month it claimed to have 10 million daily active users.
A Chess.com spokesperson declined to comment on the non-public allegations.
Kramnik’s 60-plus-page complaint to the EC includes various competition-related allegations as well as claims concerning consumer protection and advertising practices. Among other issues, he accuses Chess.com of maintaining its dominant position by purchasing rivals and closing them down rather than competing against them on the merits.
In 2022, Chess.com paid about $82 million for chess company Play Magnus Group, which included its main rival chess24. Despite Chess.com co-founder Daniel Rensch saying in June 2023 that the company had no intention of closing down the alternative site, chess24 announced six months later that it was shutting down “to focus efforts on Chess.com, which has more potential for growth and innovation.”
Chess.com also purchased and subsequently shut down live tournament coverage site ChessBomb, the complaint notes.
The European Court of Justice’s 2023 Towercast ruling empowers the EU’s competition enforcers to investigate acquisitions as potential abuses of dominance, provided those deals weren’t already subject to EU merger rules. The EC hasn’t yet publicly announced any probes of this nature, though both the French and Belgian competition authorities have ongoing cases.
Kramnik’s complaint follows a similar line of argument to one raised in a U.S. suit filed by chess player Hans Niemann, which was dismissed by a federal judge on the grounds that Niemann lacked standing to challenge the Magnus Group acquisition as he wasn’t a competing chess platform. The parties settled while the plaintiff was in the process of appealing that dismissal.
Price discrimination and exclusivity lock-ins. Chess.com has contractual relationships with influencers and streamers who broadcast their chess games live on the internet. The complaint alleges these contracts give streamers perks such as a cut of any revenue from memberships that subscribe to the platform via their content, provided they only stream chess content from Chess.com.
The EC’s draft guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance, which the agency’s currently consulting on, say that exclusive dealing by a dominant firm “has a high potential to produce exclusionary effects as it is likely to deprive or restrict the customer’s or seller’s choice of possible sources of supply or demand.”
Exclusive dealing includes “a system of incentives consisting of the grant of a rebate or other advantages conditional on” exclusivity. While prior enforcement has focused on traditional supplier-buyer markets, such as chipset purchasing, Kramnik’s claims could test the framework’s application to content creators.
Kramnik’s complaint also claims that Chess.com distorts competition within the EU by charging premium members different subscription prices depending on where they are based in the bloc. Although the platform lets users play for free, it offers several paid tiers with features including ad-free play, coaching and game review.
According to the complaint, subscribers in France pay about €125 for a top-level individual membership, while those in Lithuania pay about €90 and in Croatia only €80, Kramnik says.
Differential pricing can be deemed abusive under EU dominance rules if it tends to distort competition, though it isn’t automatically unlawful even if it disadvantages a rival.
The complaint further alleges that Chess.com violates the EU’s Digital Service Act by failing to enforce its general ban on under-13s holding accounts. The platform improperly presents its user base, among other figures, and doesn’t properly prevent cheating, the complaint adds.
Kramnik is also concerned that, aside from South Korea, no country treats cheating in online chess as a criminal offense. He’s already successfully convinced Swiss politicians to bring forward a bill in Parliament later this year that would similarly outlaw the practice.
