Football Index is a gambling site based and regulated in the UK. It styles itself as the stock market of football (soccer).

Their concept is that the you buy "shares" in football players as a way to gamble on their future success. You receive dividends based on the players performance in games and how much press they get. You can trade the shares with other users on the platform, stock index style. In fact they use an order book software licensed from NASDAQ.

I first heard about this site a couple of weeks ago after getting into NBA Top Shot (thanks to Druff and Willie McFML for the free money). I was looking to see if there were similar platforms for other sports where you could buy assets then sell them to a greater fool later after the platform increased its user base. I was still researching the Football Index and hadn't got involved yet, which is fortunate because the fools who got in recently were the greatest fools of all.

The site was in financial difficulty and 4 days ago decided to move the goalposts by reducing the maximum dividend payout from 33 pence per share to 6 pence per share. Obviously this caused the market to immediately tank, with "punters" (that's what the site calls their users - I guess it's a lot more accurate than "investors") seeing their portfolio value drop by up to 90%. There was already downward pressure on share prices before this due to the site printing hundreds of thousands of new shares in February.

Quote from an article in The Independent, published just after said changes.

Why is there so much anger and what does this mean to players’ value?

Simply put, users have found themselves in a position overnight where they have discovered their previous profits have largely evaporated, and, worse, they cannot recoup their initial investment due to the vast difference between the buy and sell now functions on the platform.

At the time of writing, Borussia Dortmund striker Erling Haaland is available to purchase for £1.14, but can only be sold for 76p, a reduction of £3.28, with his average offer previously coming in at £7.49.

While Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes is another prime example of the effect of Friday’s announcement, with his current price set at £1.20, with his sell price now at £1.10, dropping from £5.62.

Moreover, customers are irate that new shares were being released allegedly at the same time that the company knew they were experiencing financial hardship. With 300,0000 new shares issued across the exchange in February, including 15,000 sold for the eight most popular players.
Well now it's gotten even worse. The company is now broke and has entered administration. They've also had their license suspended by the UK Gambling Commission. So it looks like the "punters" could be losing 100% of their portfolio value. It's estimated that users have £100 million ($139 million USD) on the site, so it wasn't a small operation by any means.

Articles with information in the site's demise.
BBC - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56401707
Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...ence-suspended

Football Today Podcast - Lives Ruined, Thousands Lost, An Inside Look at the Collapse of Football Index.