Football Index - A warning/cautionary tale for football fans.

KittenMittens

Midfield
Posting this because there is a strong likelihood that their target audience is squarely the type of Pure Football poster who sadly can be roped into thinking this is actually a fair test of their knowledge. Unfortunately there is no mainstream coverage of the collapse of this to counter their aggressive advertising, and they are preying on average fans, rather than savvy investors.

I'm not invested in Football Index in any sense, but it is part of the general sports data world and so I've been aware of it's internal machinations for a long time and I admit I've always been a pessimist about what I consider a ponzi scheme. I think people should be aware that any money they put in will almost certainly be lost.

FI describes itself as a football stock market, where you buy the players at a price, and if they do well, the price goes up and you can then sell to others coming in at a higher price. If they do badly, you lose money on your initial investment.

Sounds kosher? It isn't. The problem with FI is that like any great ponzi scheme, it relies heavily on a huge number of ever-growing people buying the commodities all the time. If people stop buying players, FI users already invested are left with nobody to sell their shares to. For the first few years, FI had a 'quick sell' button that would sell the player back to FI for a lower price, but in Summer of last year, that was removed and things began to change quite a lot.

Since July, they have initiated at least 3 fundamental changes to the way 'dividends' (betting profits, effectively) are paid. They had a couple of 'reviews' where they artificially lowered the price of almost every player in the game. A player valued at £15 a share in May 2020 was reduced to around £5 per share in July. They then removed the 'Quick sell' button and effectively locked a solid proportion of their core users into a loss at that stage. Many of them chose to stay, hoping that the platform would take off again and their value would go back to what it was.

Of course, this hasn't happened. Their CEO left around Christmas, and last night at 8pm they announced a 30 day notice that they're having another 'Dividend Restructure'. To give you some idea of what this means in net terms, someone like Jadon Sancho who is clearly a superstar and very young (ie: an ideal buy, right?) was valued at £7 yesterday and today has a real value of just 45p.

In effect, Football Index are changing the terms of their customers' bets after the fact. Whatever your position on gambling, that is deeply unethical and should be a massive story, yet so far, there was just one story on the Guardian in January. Now, if you google FI, you'll see blogs that are paid by FI to do 'tips' and no coverage at all of any changes. Even their own website's 'news' section has zero coverage.

There are people on FI who have put tens of thousands in - some will undoubtedly have put even more in during the rush of 2018 when most players seemed to be making money. These are ordinary lads, they thought it was a no-loss proposition, or more importantly, they backed their own football knowledge. It's a complete f***ing tragedy that a lot of ordinary football fans will have lost all of their savings on this through no fault of their own.

Don't be one of them, please.

 


I’ve lost about 2 grand sneaky as fuck! Just said the other week there in the best shape of the program. Then fucked every one over. Feel for my work colleague he had about 20 grand in. Only hope is someone buys the company.
 
Always wondered how that worked. I stupidly fell victim of a ponzi scheme a few years ago and lost a 4 figure sum. The embarrassment of being so stupid was worse than losing the money like.
I’ve lost about 2 grand sneaky as fuck! Just said the other week there in the best shape of the program. Then fucked every one over. Feel for my work colleague he had about 20 grand in. Only hope is someone buys the company.

The old saying if it looks too good to be true marra.
 
I’ve lost about 2 grand sneaky as fuck! Just said the other week there in the best shape of the program. Then fucked every one over. Feel for my work colleague he had about 20 grand in. Only hope is someone buys the company.

Really sorry mate. I think the upper management will have a lot to answer for when the dust settles, wouldn't be surprised if some of them end up with serious legal consequences.

Also think the Gambling Commission, the Premier League and the media who have been promoting them, or allowing them to advertise, are massively at fault here. Even today there will be adverts around the Premier League games, and Forest (who are on TV now) are sponsored by them.

Every single entity that could stop this has passed the buck or taken the cash themselves.
 
Posting this because there is a strong likelihood that their target audience is squarely the type of Pure Football poster who sadly can be roped into thinking this is actually a fair test of their knowledge. Unfortunately there is no mainstream coverage of the collapse of this to counter their aggressive advertising, and they are preying on average fans, rather than savvy investors.

I'm not invested in Football Index in any sense, but it is part of the general sports data world and so I've been aware of it's internal machinations for a long time and I admit I've always been a pessimist about what I consider a ponzi scheme. I think people should be aware that any money they put in will almost certainly be lost.

FI describes itself as a football stock market, where you buy the players at a price, and if they do well, the price goes up and you can then sell to others coming in at a higher price. If they do badly, you lose money on your initial investment.

Sounds kosher? It isn't. The problem with FI is that like any great ponzi scheme, it relies heavily on a huge number of ever-growing people buying the commodities all the time. If people stop buying players, FI users already invested are left with nobody to sell their shares to. For the first few years, FI had a 'quick sell' button that would sell the player back to FI for a lower price, but in Summer of last year, that was removed and things began to change quite a lot.

Since July, they have initiated at least 3 fundamental changes to the way 'dividends' (betting profits, effectively) are paid. They had a couple of 'reviews' where they artificially lowered the price of almost every player in the game. A player valued at £15 a share in May 2020 was reduced to around £5 per share in July. They then removed the 'Quick sell' button and effectively locked a solid proportion of their core users into a loss at that stage. Many of them chose to stay, hoping that the platform would take off again and their value would go back to what it was.

Of course, this hasn't happened. Their CEO left around Christmas, and last night at 8pm they announced a 30 day notice that they're having another 'Dividend Restructure'. To give you some idea of what this means in net terms, someone like Jadon Sancho who is clearly a superstar and very young (ie: an ideal buy, right?) was valued at £7 yesterday and today has a real value of just 45p.

In effect, Football Index are changing the terms of their customers' bets after the fact. Whatever your position on gambling, that is deeply unethical and should be a massive story, yet so far, there was just one story on the Guardian in January. Now, if you google FI, you'll see blogs that are paid by FI to do 'tips' and no coverage at all of any changes. Even their own website's 'news' section has zero coverage.

There are people on FI who have put tens of thousands in - some will undoubtedly have put even more in during the rush of 2018 when most players seemed to be making money. These are ordinary lads, they thought it was a no-loss proposition, or more importantly, they backed their own football knowledge. It's a complete f***ing tragedy that a lot of ordinary football fans will have lost all of their savings on this through no fault of their own.

Don't be one of them, please.

Sounds kosher? It sounds f***ing nuts.
 
Posting this because there is a strong likelihood that their target audience is squarely the type of Pure Football poster who sadly can be roped into thinking this is actually a fair test of their knowledge. Unfortunately there is no mainstream coverage of the collapse of this to counter their aggressive advertising, and they are preying on average fans, rather than savvy investors.

I'm not invested in Football Index in any sense, but it is part of the general sports data world and so I've been aware of it's internal machinations for a long time and I admit I've always been a pessimist about what I consider a ponzi scheme. I think people should be aware that any money they put in will almost certainly be lost.

FI describes itself as a football stock market, where you buy the players at a price, and if they do well, the price goes up and you can then sell to others coming in at a higher price. If they do badly, you lose money on your initial investment.

Sounds kosher? It isn't. The problem with FI is that like any great ponzi scheme, it relies heavily on a huge number of ever-growing people buying the commodities all the time. If people stop buying players, FI users already invested are left with nobody to sell their shares to. For the first few years, FI had a 'quick sell' button that would sell the player back to FI for a lower price, but in Summer of last year, that was removed and things began to change quite a lot.

Since July, they have initiated at least 3 fundamental changes to the way 'dividends' (betting profits, effectively) are paid. They had a couple of 'reviews' where they artificially lowered the price of almost every player in the game. A player valued at £15 a share in May 2020 was reduced to around £5 per share in July. They then removed the 'Quick sell' button and effectively locked a solid proportion of their core users into a loss at that stage. Many of them chose to stay, hoping that the platform would take off again and their value would go back to what it was.

Of course, this hasn't happened. Their CEO left around Christmas, and last night at 8pm they announced a 30 day notice that they're having another 'Dividend Restructure'. To give you some idea of what this means in net terms, someone like Jadon Sancho who is clearly a superstar and very young (ie: an ideal buy, right?) was valued at £7 yesterday and today has a real value of just 45p.

In effect, Football Index are changing the terms of their customers' bets after the fact. Whatever your position on gambling, that is deeply unethical and should be a massive story, yet so far, there was just one story on the Guardian in January. Now, if you google FI, you'll see blogs that are paid by FI to do 'tips' and no coverage at all of any changes. Even their own website's 'news' section has zero coverage.

There are people on FI who have put tens of thousands in - some will undoubtedly have put even more in during the rush of 2018 when most players seemed to be making money. These are ordinary lads, they thought it was a no-loss proposition, or more importantly, they backed their own football knowledge. It's a complete f***ing tragedy that a lot of ordinary football fans will have lost all of their savings on this through no fault of their own.

Don't be one of them, please.


Interesting post. Is it legal what they've done? Must admit its never really held much interest for me. Like most forms of gambling I imagined it would appeal to those who thought they knew so much about football that they could beat the odds, who then find that surprise, surprise they're either down by about the average overround, or if they're doing well they've probably been taking value bets and been stake restricted.

This seemed a bit different given the nature of the site where its not betting against a bookie with odds as such, but the same idea that not everyone could do well at it. I imagine loads of people with football manager (I have it as well like) would buy up the future stars from the game thinking it is a likely form of income is most become decent. The share value seemed strange though, it doesn't seem to be about how good the player is. A lot was about how often they were in the press or whatever
 
So essentially you buy into something you don't own "a share of a player" and you have to pay the exact amount they are worth? So a player valued at £7 costs you £7.

Then you"re saying the company one day decided the player isn't worth £7 and revalued them as £3, so your account investments now show as £3, a loss of £4 even though nothing changes from the day before in any real sense?
 
Its a gambling site & the company makes a profit overall. So statistically you will lose money. I don't think they've pretended otherwise
 
Its a gambling site & the company makes a profit overall. So statistically you will lose money. I don't think they've pretended otherwise
To be fair that's not always the case. I think some are seeing it a bit like a betfair. They're a gambling company, they make money, but because you're betting against other players, you can in theory set the price, and they just take a relatively small commission, it's seen as one you could potentially do okay on, if you really knew what you were doing. Most will still lose money, but the odds there are almost always a fair bit better than you'll find at any bookie. If you see this as a fair platform where its about your ability to recognise a good player before others, then it's a bit shan if they suddenly, seemingly for no reason, slash the value of your "investments". Because that's the other thing it's seen as being like, the stock market. Again you know a lot of people do lose money, but it's not like a pure gambling site where everyone (over time) does. I'm not really up on the stock market but I've certainly never heard of all company stock prices randomly being slashed across the board
 
Its a gambling site & the company makes a profit overall. So statistically you will lose money. I don't think they've pretended otherwise

I think that's a very basic defence that doesn't stand up to any scrutiny. This company has changed the fundamental terms of the 'bets' that players made and artificially reduced the profits that they had already made.

It's like placing a bet at 2/1, that team winning 5-0 in stoppage time, and the company then telling you that actually, they'll be keeping your money regardless of the outcome.
 
Basically stopped you from selling your player, suspended the market from 18.30 -till 7.00

made announcement at 7 pm saying that the dividends from a player was changing dramatically. A gold star man for the day would earn 28p a share now on most days it will be either 1p or 2p.

they also said all bids where resetting. If I was to sell my Bruno shares at 2pm on Friday I would of recouped £300 now I be lucky if I got £30. Be interesting if anything comes out of it it’s a serious scam.
 
I put £20 in when it was first launched. Used to tinker about with it and was up to £60 last time I checked a few months ago. It’s now £9 due to whats happened. Obviously immaterial compared to some others but what they have done is tantamount to theft. Are they not subject to the usual regulation?
 
So essentially you buy into something you don't own "a share of a player" and you have to pay the exact amount they are worth? So a player valued at £7 costs you £7.

Then you"re saying the company one day decided the player isn't worth £7 and revalued them as £3, so your account investments now show as £3, a loss of £4 even though nothing changes from the day before in any real sense?
This is what always put me off. If you buy a share of a company you own part of that company (on paper anyway) but you obviously don't own part of the player. There was some convoluted dividend system where you got pay outs based on media coverage so you were basically betting on the player doing well and getting coverage but they changed that on a whim. Ponzi scheme is exactly what it is, you don't actually own anything and rely on the site growing to be able to sell.
 
Never paid much attention to it but assumed it was small amounts people were investing, or betting in effect. As a serious investment option I would have thought it was high risk, but it has clearly mutated now into a clear scam. Sorry to hear about any losses from folk on here.
 

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