Football Index

wiseonesomeofthetime

Quite dramatic for those that "invested" in this "fund".

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/mar/06/football-index-customers-furious-market-crash

Albermarle

Presumably not many regular forum users would be too worried .

DoctorStrange

It's terrible they're allowed to use language like "invested", "dividends", "shares" etc. 

Imagine if William Hill or Ladbrokes were promoting "dividends" if you "invested" in Man City winning the league. 

I know some on here will focus on the victims' perceived naivety, but the real focus should on those pushing this scam

benbay001

In ten years time there will be posts on here about "What to do with £20k? I dont want equities because i lost the lot once"

resk

Just had a look on Twitter, wow.  Seems like a reasonably intricate Ponzi scheme.  I guess the longer they kept it going for the more money they extorted out of people.  Framing the thing in terms of the most popular sport in the country must have been very lucrative too.  
As ever I feel sorry for the people who lost money.  

Aretnap

There used to be a thread on here in which a couple of new accounts sang the praises of this fantastic investment and the regulars unanimously agreed that it was nothing of the sort. 

I can't find it now so I suppose it must have gone the way of most threads that warn punters away from fake investment opportunities. 

In the interest of keeping the mods happy I should point out that technically this is not a fake investment opportunity as the small print of the website did make clear that it is a gambling website, not an investment; however that didn't seem to be the impression that many of the punters who handed over their money had. 

maxsteam

I saw some adverts for it on TV a while ago. I didn't like it then because, even if it ran smoothly, it was obviously going to favour the organiser in the same way as a roulette wheel does, but more so.

It's marketed as a better option that the stock market or traditional bookies.

Their website is still inviting people to sign up and there are flashing prices for the players, just like a real stock exchange. There's lots of garbage about rewarding traders for their football knowledge but players can currently be "bought" for over £1 and "sold" for 1p so there's no reward for anyone except the organiser. It claims to be regulated by the Jersey Gambling Commission.

Malthusian

resk said:

Just had a look on Twitter, wow.  Seems like a reasonably intricate Ponzi scheme.

All Ponzi schemes are zero sum games but not all zero sum games are Ponzi schemes. This was the latter.

Nobody can accuse me of being reluctant to call a Ponzi a Ponzi, but every time I saw marketing for Football Index it was always perfectly clear that it was a gambling / fantasy football game and not some kind of investment. Five seconds in the FAQ was long enough to make it clear how the game worked and how money flowed from the punters to the bookie (if you didn't sell your "shares" in time they expired without value). Their advertising was far less misleading than the likes of eToro and the crypto rampers telling you that buying Tesla or Bitcoin will get you rich quick.

firestone

Seems more like a gambling or fantasy sports idea  that is struggling rather then a scam and at some point they convinced the football authorities to allow then to sponsor QPR & Nottingham Forest.They were even growing big enough to sign a deal a couple of years back to work with Nasdaq to use their services hence the story being picked up by the likes of Bloomberg.

maxsteam

In a real market, there would be the possibility of, for example, someone else coming along and offering to buy a player for a few pence more than Football Index. It's the same with some OTC stocks. If the whole market is run by one organisation, that organisation is going to be the only one to make money.

milton1970

This thread should be on the Gambling page .. FI is just a quasi pyramid scheme gambling game dressed up to give the perception that the gambler is “investing” - it was clearly unsustainable & eventually ran out of ££. Many warned those playing it if the risk but they just got shouted down. Sad for those that lost but with gambling, someone always loses !

I compare this to CFD - my view is that is investing but there could be a debate there too