Unable to join 2 sockets to rooms simultaneously - socket.io

Question

I'm traying to billed a 2-playerg game using Socket.io to communicate between the opponents.
The basic idea is that whenever a socket is connected is will be saved in a global variable (and the front-end will wait for opponents), and when another socket is connected - booth of them will join a room and the game will start.
Within the "start game" function - only socket1 (the second user to log in) is actually joining the room.
what am I missing?
let watingUser = undefined;
io.on('connection', (socket) => {
console.log(socket.handshake.query.name + ' has connected');
handelNewUser(socket);
socket.on('disconnect', () => {
console.log(socket.handshake.query.name + ' has disconnected');
});
socket.on('move', (pitNum, room) => {
socket.to(room).emit('opponent-move', pitNum);
});
});
const handelNewUser = (socket) => {
socket.emit('login', {
id: socket.id,
});
if (watingUser) startGame(socket, watingUser);
else waitForOpponent(socket);
};
const startGame = (socket1, socket2) => {
watingUser = undefined;
console.log('wating room is empty');
const room = uniqid();
socket1.join(room);
socket2.join(room);
socket1.to(room).emit('game-start', {
room,
opponent: socket1.handshake.query.name,
});
socket2.to(room).emit('game-start', {
room,
opponent: socket2.handshake.query.name,
});
console.log('gameStart');
};
const waitForOpponent = (socket) => {
watingUser = socket;
console.log(watingUser.handshake.query.name + ' is wating');
};