football index goes belly-up

Joined
May 8, 2018
Location
south east england
Don't know a lot about this company and its product other than seeing adverts for it pop up when I use to play fantasy football last year, wonder if anyone from CM forum land ever used it, £90 million has apparently been lost from player's accounts, and some of the newspaper articles I read earlier were pointing the finger at ukgc, a betfair customer wrote to warn them in december that it was similar to a ponzi scheme.

I wonder if its product/system mechanic did come under the description of 'gambling',[ reminds me of bitcoin in a way, there's no physical assets linked to it] buying fictional shares in football players on the basis if they play well the price goes up.
 
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According to the bits I've just read the firm was based in jersey and the protection level for customer's money held in accounts was 'medium', I don't know if that means they will get any back, some have lost many thousands at this point.

edit: bizarrely the football index founder and ceo adam cole also founded the company that made those 'electric blue' vids in the 80s, [ which I never watched ] he even directed some according to imdb! what a strange world some people must inhabit :rolleyes:
 
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It was clearly a ponzi scheme, and the UKGC need to be hauled over the coals for this. There have been numerous complaints made to them well before now about them and the way it was being run, yet everyone just got the 'we don't talk about individual cases' response. It's about time they did. Running round removing autospins, whilst allowing a ponzi scheme to operate, resulting in large losses for a lot of people.
 
Been reading a bit more, mainly on twitter, someone has lost over £100k, another 60k ...."The collapse is thought to be the biggest failure of a gambling business in British history" according to the Times, absolutely shocking in this day and age, where information is available at a click of a button.

This govt should reform the not fit for purpose regulator before fretting about the 'dangers' of autospin. I don't like to see tax payers money spent on anything other than govt core services and functions, but I feel there perhaps should be a case for some sort of compensation of deposits paid by the ukgc for allowing such a scamming product to operate under their noses and be issued a licence.
 
It was clearly a ponzi scheme, and the UKGC need to be hauled over the coals for this. There have been numerous complaints made to them well before now about them and the way it was being run, yet everyone just got the 'we don't talk about individual cases' response. It's about time they did. Running round removing autospins, whilst allowing a ponzi scheme to operate, resulting in large losses for a lot of people.
The Monopolies and Mergers Commission should carry out a full investigation into the practices of the UKGC.

In fact the Monopolies and Mergers Commission should investigate themselves because there is only one of them!
 
Buying shares in something whose value is not underpinned by anything is never the brightest of ideas. Some people got really sucked in and unfortunately given that football has a wide scope of appeal, especially by working class young males, a lot of people couldn't afford the money they lost.

I think the GC have been negligent; they never really understood what Football Index was and they have been the same whenever a disruptive product has entered the market. They didn't know what to do with it and it was clearly one thing but marketed as another.

I mean, buying shares in football players who will retire in a few years ffs. The whole thing was unsustainable and constantly reliant on new investment being pumped in. Everyone buys shares in the best players and not enough money goes in everywhere else to finance the promised returns.

Complete shit-show really. Never mind though - it will all be grand when autoplay gets kicked into touch :thumbsup:
 
Sounds a bit like bitcoin lol

If enough people decide to extricate themselves from the underlying risk and cash out while up, the price will plummet, could be the coming economic problems that trigger some domino effect, but atm I bet a 10% drop encourages enough to pile more in. There is some useful underlying technology to it apparently, blockchains whatever they are, that have uses elsewhere.

Also I read yesterday the whole crypto scene is using the same energy resources as a medium sized country, so it's hardly a good return for the environmental angle, surprised that climate change girl Greta hasn't got it in her sights.
 
If enough people decide to extricate themselves from the underlying risk and cash out while up, the price will plummet, could be the coming economic problems that trigger some domino effect, but atm I bet a 10% drop encourages enough to pile more in. There is some useful underlying technology to it apparently, blockchains whatever they are, that have uses elsewhere.

Also I read yesterday the whole crypto scene is using the same energy resources as a medium sized country, so it's hardly a good return for the environmental angle, surprised that climate change girl Greta hasn't got it in her sights.

Bitcoin is the 21st century Tulip bubble. I could be wrong, but things that have no value, eventually have no value lol
 
I shouldn't post again on this topic but this gave me a chuckle, dark times you need some humour, hope this week brings the victims some better news. This football index firm was so full of it.


Christ - that tweet didn't age well did it.

I looked into Football Index and it's a really fun idea, but that's the problem isn;t it, it makes you think that because it's fun it's ok to do. Then this happens because it's fundamentally flawed. I know a guy who had £70k invested in FI. £70k. Can you even imagine how you would feel after watching that plummet down to sod all
 
This was clearly a pyramid scam, cleverly dressed up as 'gambling' in order to avoid the scrutiny and expertise of the FSA and getting licensed instead under the gambling act and the UKGC as fall guys who wouldn't know a scam if they saw one (until somebody tells them later, that is).
 

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