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Post by bluechip on Jul 22, 2018 7:56:24 GMT
Hi - I think members of this forum should take a serious look at 'Football Index' (FI). (Update provided almost 12 months on on page 4).
In the interest of full disclosure I am not a representative of the company, however I was introduced to them a couple of years ago as they were seeking investment via the platform Seedrs. I made a small investment in the company as I liked the idea but felt the risks were high at the time for a start-up with a brand new concept. I have spent the past couple of years drip feeding money into the platform as I have watched my returns steadily (sometimes dramatically) increase. I was investing with over 10 P2P platforms two years ago, this has reduced to just 1 now (although I have money locked into about 5) as this sector is facing some serious issues in my opinion, so I have been taking money out of P2P and adding to FI.
I have always hedged when offering advice as anything less than 2 years experience in something like this is too little to make informed decisions and certainly recommendations. I won't go into 'War & Peace' about the platform, as there are numerous tutorials and forums dedicated to FI, there is a fantastic introduction video on youtube which explains everything very clearly by a long time user of FI - Football Index Guide. There is also a fantastic daily blog by somebody called 'Football Index Trader', great read and teaches a lot.
The concept is very simple, you have the option to buy 'futures' in footballers. You can buy up to 100 in one go, they vary in price according to their deemed value according to the rules of FI. You win/earn money in several ways.
1 - The player's worth grows - more people buy shares in him (by far the most lucrative way to earn money to date as the platform now has over 150,000 users and is expanding into Ireland, Sweden, Canada and has plans to grow further we are told).
2 - The player is the most talked about in the 25 or so news portals they use to form a 'Media Buzz' score each day, the top 3 performers win you dividends each day if there are no qualifying football matches played that day. For the next month it will just be about Media Buzz as football is in pre-season and the only qualifying games are top flight English, Italian, German, Spanish & French. It also uses Europa League & Champions League Games, recently the World Cup was included as a one off special.
3 - The player is the best performer on a match day for their position (defender/midfield/attackers), there is a bonus paid to the best overall performer of the day and also just the top Media Buzz player wins a dividend on these days. There is more scope to earn money the more matches that are played as the more games means a players has less chance of being top performer (more competition).
Knowing about football is helpful of course, but it is not essential. I don't know much about antiques, property in Whitehaven or Power Boats but I saw fit to put thousands into those (Granted they lost me money but I have made a lot on P2P over the past 5 years overall)! The majority of people investing in the platform will have seen 50%-200% rises in their portfolio over the past couple of years, the only people that have lost money have either stupidly put all of their money in one player (think Wind Turbines) and seen him drop and then sold out early, or they have been spending their time flipping players and each time paying a 2% fee - foolish. I'd hazard a guess that 99% of money that have used the platform for more than 12 months have seen at least 20% returns.
I am suggesting a serious look at this option now for several reasons:
A - I have seen significant growth in my personal portfolio, doubled my money in two years - by far my largest growth out of any investment I have made. First 18 months I did nothing with my portfolio, now I have a larger investment I am paying more attention to it - think the old FC manual/auto invest - so it doesn't necessarily eat up much time if you don't want it to.
B - Everywhere I read about users making large returns and the growth has been large, they use a kind of FTSE number to give a rough idea of how valuable the market is on the FI website, it has grown from around 3000-22,000 since I have been using the platform. They are building a brand new website I understand as well. Almost every week I read about a new undertaking designed to attract more users and for the most part it works as the numbers keep growing.
C - I understand they have just signed up to a multi-million pound advertising deal with Sky Sports for next seasons Premier League & Championship campaign. I have no exact details about what exactly this means (frequency/time of adverts), but it should mean the amount of users grows rapidly again very soon. They also have deals with TalkSport and other media. More users means more players being acquired which means the value of your holdings should grow. I don't live in London, but they apparently have advertising all over the city on Double Deckers and the Tube.
D - They have just sponsored Bristol Rovers Football Club for the coming season as their main shirt sponsor - this may not sound too impressive to the layman (no offence Gas fans), but the common concern people have when deciding whether or not to invest with the platform in my experience is that it sounds too good to be true/it could be a ponzi/pyramid scheme. Sponsoring a team adds a level of credibility and means the platform are spending money to aid credibility (i'd suggest that if it was up-to-no-good then they wouldn't be making these large investments in growth). There was plenty of information provided during the Seedrs campaign that enticed me to invest, there are several big names in the gaming world as large investors as well, so this gave me confidence to part with my money at the time.
E - It's classed as gambling because each future you acquire has a 3 year lifespan - no tax. You can sell at any time to market (you just have to wait a short time for a buyer) or instant sell to the platform for a slightly larger spread. The platform makes money by charging you 2% to sell a future. So as 3 years approaches you can sell and buy-back the player if you like, or exit the player completely. If you need to sell instantly then FI will buy back but it costs you a little more, (Think Zopa selling loans, but there is no wait).
F - If you enjoy watching football then it adds an extra layer of enjoyment if you have a player you 'own' playing, you can see his personal score as the game progresses (they use OPTA to grade players), so as you are paid a certain amount of pence for each future you own you can calculate what you will wake up to in your dividends pot the next day should your player top the list for their category.
As mentioned there are masses of blogs, forums posts and places to dig deeper, there is also an offer to refund your stake if you start and don't like it as well. Ultimately I'm writing this post because I have become disenchanted with many of the P2P platforms with their shady due diligence, pathetic updates and I'm sitting on a few bad loans - I also was stuck for places to put my money as I am as exposed as I want to be to the markets and P2P. I have found this growth platform which thus far has only been a positive experience for me. Yes existing users benefit the more people that get involved, but as I believe the growth is about to ratchet up very soon this could be a good opportunity for forumites to have a mini-headstart on the masses and dip your toes in the water. The company is over 3 years old now, but it isn't corporate yet in my opinion. So that can be a blessing or a curse dependent on what you want, I like that they are flexible and try new concepts (like adding the World Cup as a bonus), but some people may be put-off putting in big money as it is still growing and learning. After all it is a brand new sector with absolutely no competition that I am aware of.
I'll check this post from time-time if anybody has any questions, but there is a specific FI Forum as well which is similar to this one where everything is covered and I find it useful myself.
Maybe some readers have already taken part and want to add their own experience to flesh out my views or contradict if they feel it appropriate. As I say I am only talking about my experiences and what I have gleaned in the public domain - but it seems a very good place to look if you have money doing very little work for you and it's especially enjoyable as a football fan.
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Jul 22, 2018 8:27:42 GMT
I've nothing against the concept, but as you say yourself this is very much on the gambling end of the 'putting my money somewhere' pole, with P2P investing being (probably only slightly!) higher up it. I think 'viable alternative investment' is really pushing it as a label.
That said, I've dabbled rather extensively in advantage gambling/matched betting, but had heard mixed reports about FI. When I'm back in the UK I might see if I can convince myself of having a go, at least with the free trial. Thanks for the write-up.
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Post by bluechip on Jul 22, 2018 8:34:49 GMT
Thanks R00lish - I've amended title accordingly.
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Jul 22, 2018 9:00:01 GMT
If 99% of users have had 20+% returns, who has paid for that? Where's the money coming from -- doesn't sound sustainable if this works as I understand (this is just gambling with no underlying?)
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IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Jul 22, 2018 9:10:32 GMT
If 99% of users have had 20+% returns, who has paid for that? Where's the money coming from -- doesn't sound sustainable if this works as I understand (this is just gambling with no underlying?) New recruits. Now there's a word for that, can't quite remember what it is...
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Post by bluechip on Jul 22, 2018 9:41:01 GMT
Obviously new users are acquiring players, its a growth-company.
If you are early into FI then as new users build their portfolios they are increasing the value of your existing holding. As the company is in a growth stage the opportunity exists for people to get involved to capitalise on what I assume will be a large influx of new users come the new season (when the main stream advertising kicks in and new markets are opened up). As mentioned in the original spiel, the market size has grown 7 times since I started investing! To give you an example over the last 24hrs the index grew by 185 points, which is the equivalent to roughly 0.85% in one day.
The whole purpose of this thread was to alert people to the fact that there may be an opportunity to take advantage of being early-ish - obviously the original investors took all the risk and now will see larger rises in their portfolios as a result. There are early takers who sold out of course taking profits, as an example I myself held several hundred shares in Neymar for £2, I sold all of them for £6 a few months later - he is now trading at £13, I made money but I cashed out early (he also earned several pounds per share in dividends on top). Naturally once the organic growth stops there will be a different skill-set required to make money (more football knowledge and more trading skill), at the moment that isn't critical because the growth has been rapid and is set to continue I believe.
Just like bigger profits were being made on FC before the masses got involved, the same mentality can be applied here. Instead of a loan going into default (players gets career ending injury/dies or retires), you can still sell to the platform, with P2P that money may as well be dead for the most part if it gets to that stage and the likelihood of those things happening are slim to a footballer. Just don't buy very old players!
There are only losers (in large number) once a platform like this stops adding users on a large scale because then it becomes a case of people needing to lose money for you to make money, but there is room to grow yet and then it becomes a proper trading market - it is not there yet and won't be for some time imo as new users join each day.
Bitcoin is maybe a good example for early stage take-up, but with FI you get dividends and it's a lot less prone to wild swings as you can diversify your portfolio. Early takers of Bitcoin benefited the same way though, different animals of course.
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Post by bluechip on Jul 22, 2018 10:02:52 GMT
Seriously!!
I was pondering whether or not to post this as there are always skeptics and no matter how I word it you will have people challenge your character or motives, either through ignorance, jealousy or just because it's their default response when they don't understand something. Do your own research, I use this forum and have done for several years, I have taken advantage of insights over the years and used new platforms on the basis of recommendations. I am passing on what I have learned from using this new platform to make better returns than I have on any of my other investments. If you choose to investigate it then great, if not then no problem, but I'm sure many people will not be familiar with FI and may like the opportunity to explore a new way of potentially making good returns.
The type of smug comments like this are the exact same comments I received when telling friends and family about P2P several years ago, whilst they were stuck picking up their 1% from the banks. Do some due diligence then take the Michael if you want, not beforehand it's out of order. This isn't a hard sell, I'm just trying to be clear with my explanations as some people are stuck in their ways and find it hard to embrace new ideas.
I'm happy to assist those with genuine questions, but I won't reply to any further smug comments or assumptions - this was posted in good faith but do your own DD.
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p2pmark
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Post by p2pmark on Jul 22, 2018 10:37:45 GMT
It's clearly unsustainable en masse in the long term, unless people really enjoy playing. All "dividends" come from the platform provider who in turn can only get income from the gamblers . Given it must cost a fair bit to run the site, overall, in the long-run, it must be a negative expected value game for all gamblers combined. The main costs to gamblers would seem to be the large 4-5% spread on buying and selling.
That said, there would seem to be two ways to make money as an individual in the short-term:
(a) buy and hold for as long as you're allowed to hold for so long as the dividend payouts exceed the (risk-adjusted) opportunity cost of your capital. You are relying on either (i) other gamblers buying and selling regularly to provide the platform with enough income to keep the platform sustainable even though it must be negative for them combined or (ii) rely on a rising market - obviously this can only work for so long. Of course the more (ii) holds, the less profitable (i) is as the return on capital falls.
(b) trade, knowing a lot more than the other gamblers (so much so that that you can overcome the spread). Again, this is unlikely to work for long as the bad gamblers will realise they're losing money and stop playing, leaving only the better ones left. But my previous experience of online poker suggests that this can take a surprisingly long time to work through. Having said this, this would no doubt be a time consuming activity and require access to platform at very short notice when news comes in so you can react before prices do.
Both of these strategies rely on the platform provider (or, I guess, the regulator) not arbitrarily changing the rules at any time.
I would be wary of claims that they're going to grow quickly. The platform clearly has an incentive to argue this. (And, incidentally, I haven't seen any adverts in London for the game for maybe a year.)
Hope this is helpful.
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Post by bluechip on Jul 22, 2018 11:26:08 GMT
P2Pmark - thanks for the post.
I think the spread between trades is only if you sell instantly back to the platform, the only loss you incur if you sell to market is 2%, but most people seem to sell back to the platform instantly as they jump onto the new 'buzz' player. I think as users get more sophisticated they will realise these costs add up and selling to the market is best - plus as the market is growing the speed those sales happen tend to be quicker than they once were.
Interesting about the adverts in London, they've been making a big deal of it - time to do some digging.
The last update they provided to Seedrs back in February indicated that they were making quite a lot of money already. If they were not making money I would have expected them to come back to Seedrs for more money to back their next growth phase (like many companies have on Seedrs including P2P lenders), but that doesn't look likely according to what they say. It is fascinating watching the trades tick through. (minimum 2% of each sale you can see how it adds up quickly). The Dividends side of things will be their man expense, but with a few thousands footballers to choose from, I don't think it's a problem for them (they increased the payouts a little while ago as well which is a clear sign money is being made when you couple it with the fact they haven't looked to raise more capital).
There are obvious things to be wary of though, I suppose when people default to the negative 'Pyramid Scheme/Scam' it is concerning, it's not 100% safe of course but as we have learned with P2P everything carries risk. I suppose like any business like this if you invest early it is kind of like a pyramid, it's what happens when that growth stops that will be interesting and like you, my personal view is then the whole thing changes to a more stock/shares style trading for people that know more about football than they do about the inner machinations of FTSE/S&P companies will use it - toss a coin at that stage on where it will end up but it's still a fair way off and it seems pretty easy to sell up and walk away currently.
I'm not suggesting anyone go crazy, maybe dip your toe in now whilst there is clear room to grow and then weigh up the pro's and cons before committing further. They have the return policy as well if you don't like it of course! I've learned a great deal over the past 12-18 months, so it's important that you read the rules and review the comments/forums/ blogs/podcasts etc. It won't be for everyone, but for me it has been easy money so far.
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macq
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Post by macq on Jul 22, 2018 12:37:49 GMT
Not sure if it can happen on FI (which seems in someways to be a cross between spread betting & fantasy sports) but maybe you can answer from being a user. American media like ESPN,Sports Illustrated.USA Today etc have over the last couple of years looked into the fast growth of fantasy sports betting and reported (in their opinion) that on the likes of Draft Kings and similar that there is a big advantage for syndicates using bigger buy-ins & bots etc over the smaller player.Would you see that as a problem on FI now or in the future?
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Post by bluechip on Jul 22, 2018 13:32:14 GMT
I don't know enough about Bots to be honest (or much about spread betting). I would say that it would be relatively easy to drive a price up or down at the moment due to the size of the market, so in theory a group or whale could sell thousands of shares in a player hoping for sheep to jump on board, with a view to then picking them up cheaper (or vice-versus), however the platform does have stops on the instant sell option to protect the platform and the users apparently - and that group would lose a lot of money as they pay a premium to instant sell especially expensive for the most expensive players. So if their IT system picks up 'strange' activity then it will turn off the instant sell feature for that player. It can help the user if they are not aware a player they own dies (as happened unfortunately to an AC Milan player last season) or has a terrible injury, the platform trades 24/7 so this is helpful insurance I suppose. Flip side would be if you are quick to spot a problem with a player and try to sell everything you own it might not let you and you may have to wait to be matched up. I think this only kicks in with tens of thousands at stake rather than hundreds of pounds, most people will not own tens of thousands of any particular player (if they do then they are gambling rather than investing imo).
I haven't noticed anything in this regard to be honest, just standard drops or rises on big news, nothing that can't be explained afterwards as far as I know. When Zlatan Ibrahmiviuch announced he was going to the USA his price dropped massively for example as the US Leagues don't count for dividends, and his media focus wouldn't be high.
It's similar to fantasy football, but the rules of the game are made clear and based on actual events taking place. Generally the best player wins, but the points accrued are made clear and there are experts that have set-up subscription services to get all into the charts/stats. I don't use them myself, but they can be very helpful for people not expert in all things football. It can very much be a mathematical thing which is why I put it on here, football knowledge is helpful, but if you read the rules and have a mind suited to it, then there is no reason why you couldn't capitalise. I actually made a few mistakes buying the best players (in my opinion) for my own team thinking that would translate to dividends, but generally the prices are pretty fair now on the market as it has gone through the stage of discovery.
There was a podcast recently where they mentioned something about putting an order book system in place, so you can pick a price you would sell/buy a player and set the system, so you don't have to monitor it or get lucky if a sudden story breaks that means a player rise/fall. I'm sure there will be people trying to figure out how to game the system, but I haven't encountered any problems or heard anything. The FI community is growing larger and larger so I imagine the slightest hint of something not being kosher it would be snuffed out in no time.
Hope this helps.
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invester
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Post by invester on Jul 23, 2018 20:35:14 GMT
A few people have mentioned this.
The thing seems a potential ponzi to me. More people joining increases the demand for players, which increases their price. Anyone that has got in early, therefore has done very well. But unlike shares there is nothing fundamental in their price. Shares give you a part of a company (and CFDs reflect this value), but contrast a players price does not.
What happens if the user base shrinks? The value of the dividend appears to be dependent upon the number of players. If everyone decides to cash out at one go, the share prices have to go down. Right now perhaps there is no clear catalyst for that, but an adverse news article about financial stability could spark it.
There is a lot of talking up of it because of a generous affiliate scheme.
Not sure it's worth the risk myself. If you want to gamble, you can play the spreads at Sporting Index for individual player performances with negligible counterparty risk.
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Post by bluechip on Jul 24, 2018 8:08:36 GMT
Yes of course there are risks, but I believe less risk than most P2P - As a result I have transferred almost all of my P2P money into FI having studied everything I can about the two markets, firstly before significantly investing and secondly before recommending it.
I have made more in 1 year than I have made in the past 5 years with P2P from the same level of investment (with 1% of the worry and hassle). I also know I can leave at any time paying a small premium to do so. The thousands I have locked in dead loans on P2P I will be lucky to see back 10p/£1 - and it is not fun trying to read between the lines of every update and deal with massive incompetence of platforms and the people that have borrowed my hard earned money only to lie and cheat their way out of giving it back. You don't get that with this platform, I certainly haven't experienced anything negative yet anyway.
FI has been trading for over 3 years and the signs are good - growth is huge and there are no competitors, international markets are being opened as well. A lot of the talk I read is of people allocating what they would to a bookmakers to FI as it is seen as more of an investment, which is why I though it might be ideal for P2P users - the more people that use it the word of mouth growth alone will be vast. There are people with deep pockets starting to get involved, so just like when P2P was in it's break out years there is a chance to get in before it goes mainstream. I've posted about it on here because there is a window of opportunity for people to jump in and jump out (if they want) with potentially huge profits to be made, this is the quietest time with no football being played and before a large marketing plan kicks in.
If you apply the logic of everyone pulling out causing the whole thing to crash, you could say the same about anything. What if people stopped using a P2P platform, pulled out of a Hedgefund overnight, sold all their gold etc? Of course there is no collateral backing your investment which is why I mentioned BitCoin earlier, (I recently lost every penny I invested in Carillion shares, same with several P2P loans I currently have working through the FS, REBS, Lendy, FK, FC systems), I fortunately didn't get involved with 'Collateral', but hundreds/thousands of people have had a torrid few months because they got involved with that. As P2P users most of us will know that Director guarantees, LTV's etc are not worth the paper they are written on, so I don't see much of a difference in terms of security (in fact this seems to be more secure as the platform is the only thing that can go wrong, rather than rogue borrowers making crazy decisions with our money).
Always remember to take out your money from FI there is a 2% commission going to the platform minimum - hundreds of thousands/millions pounds worth of trades are happening every day, and any diversified portfolio is seeing gains - the market has grown 10% in the past couple of months alone from my calculations. The company must be making a fortune as it currently stands and barring some unforeseen calamity it should continue to do so.
From my perspective 99% of things people say about it are positive - and I'm talking about people that have bothered to look into it, use it, not just written it off without any serious investigation. It is gambling, but so is P2P, stocks, holding more than £85k with a bank (and even if it's less than £85k inflation will kill you if the government have to pay-out the insurance on that). The company appears to be going from strength-to-strength and I think they have insulated themselves very intelligently, the 2% commission is huge for them. But yes there are risks.
A new competitor could emerge (although it would be difficult now as they have significant traction), IT issues could cause chaos, something terrible could happen internally which kills the platform - but for the returns currently being made by everyone (I have not heard anyone say they lost money that has been using FI for more than a few months). For me it's a risk worth taking and I'd challenge anybody to look into it, make use of the money back guarantee they offer and not still be using the platform in 6 months time. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but it's the surest investment I have made thus far and the signs are only positive currently.
I won't reply anymore on this thread as I have said everything I can and if you are not convinced to take a serious look after the lengthy posts I have written then nothing will convince you. However, if you do have questions feel free to message me privately and I'll be happy to assist, suggest places to carry out DD etc. I'll sign off by saying what I said at the start. Opportunities like this don't seem to come along too often. My primary objective is to make people aware of this concept, because if I were unaware of it I would have appreciated somebody doing the same on here and I have certainly taken advantage of this forum in the past to help my decision making process regarding investments I make or don't.
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dandy
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Post by dandy on Jul 24, 2018 8:42:07 GMT
Thanks for sharing this bluechip – I have seen adverts previously but never got around to checking it out. I have just looked at their website and I do not really get the business model (maybe I’m not supposed to, I dunno, although 3 mins reading t and c's is about my limit to be fair) Let’s say I buy 1 share in Harry Kane at £5. What happens to my £5 when I buy the share? Then I would receive possible dividends (if he plays well etc) and possible media payouts (if talked about) – where are these paid from/by whom? Finally, how do they arrive at a £5 valuation and how does that change. Is there some clear formula or is that at the whim of FI? If it goes up to £10, where is that £10 coming from when I sell. Similarly if it goes to £1, who pockets the £4? Seems like we are effectively gambling against FI directly – but then FI set the prices? Sounds like a really interesting idea so not being cynical just curious |
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p2pmark
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Post by p2pmark on Jul 24, 2018 8:53:00 GMT
Yes of course there are risks, but I believe less risk than most P2P - As a result I have transferred almost all of my P2P money into FI having studied everything I can about the two markets, firstly before significantly investing and secondly before recommending it. I have made more in 1 year than I have made in the past 5 years with P2P from the same level of investment (with 1% of the worry and hassle). I also know I can leave at any time paying a small premium to do so. The thousands I have locked in dead loans on P2P I will be lucky to see back 10p/£1 - and it is not fun trying to read between the lines of every update and deal with massive incompetence of platforms and the people that have borrowed my hard earned money only to lie and cheat their way out of giving it back. You don't get that with this platform, I certainly haven't experienced anything negative yet anyway. FI has been trading for over 3 years and the signs are good - growth is huge and there are no competitors, international markets are being opened as well. A lot of the talk I read is of people allocating what they would to a bookmakers to FI as it is seen as more of an investment, which is why I though it might be ideal for P2P users - the more people that use it the word of mouth growth alone will be vast. There are people with deep pockets starting to get involved, so just like when P2P was in it's break out years there is a chance to get in before it goes mainstream. I've posted about it on here because there is a window of opportunity for people to jump in and jump out (if they want) with potentially huge profits to be made, this is the quietest time with no football being played and before a large marketing plan kicks in. If you apply the logic of everyone pulling out causing the whole thing to crash, you could say the same about anything. What if people stopped using a P2P platform, pulled out of a Hedgefund overnight, sold all their gold etc? Of course there is no collateral backing your investment which is why I mentioned BitCoin earlier, (I recently lost every penny I invested in Carillion shares, same with several P2P loans I currently have working through the FS, REBS, Lendy, FK, FC systems), I fortunately didn't get involved with 'Collateral', but hundreds/thousands of people have had a torrid few months because they got involved with that. As P2P users most of us will know that Director guarantees, LTV's etc are not worth the paper they are written on, so I don't see much of a difference in terms of security (in fact this seems to be more secure as the platform is the only thing that can go wrong, rather than rogue borrowers making crazy decisions with our money). Always remember to take out your money from FI there is a 2% commission going to the platform minimum - hundreds of thousands/millions pounds worth of trades are happening every day, and any diversified portfolio is seeing gains - the market has grown 10% in the past couple of months alone from my calculations. The company must be making a fortune as it currently stands and barring some unforeseen calamity it should continue to do so. From my perspective 99% of things people say about it are positive - and I'm talking about people that have bothered to look into it, use it, not just written it off without any serious investigation. It is gambling, but so is P2P, stocks, holding more than £85k with a bank (and even if it's less than £85k inflation will kill you if the government have to pay-out the insurance on that). The company appears to be going from strength-to-strength and I think they have insulated themselves very intelligently, the 2% commission is huge for them. But yes there are risks. A new competitor could emerge (although it would be difficult now as they have significant traction), IT issues could cause chaos, something terrible could happen internally which kills the platform - but for the returns currently being made by everyone (I have not heard anyone say they lost money that has been using FI for more than a few months). For me it's a risk worth taking and I'd challenge anybody to look into it, make use of the money back guarantee they offer and not still be using the platform in 6 months time. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but it's the surest investment I have made thus far and the signs are only positive currently. I won't reply anymore on this thread as I have said everything I can and if you are not convinced to take a serious look after the lengthy posts I have written then nothing will convince you. However, if you do have questions feel free to message me privately and I'll be happy to assist, suggest places to carry out DD etc. I'll sign off by saying what I said at the start. Opportunities like this don't seem to come along too often. My primary objective is to make people aware of this concept, because if I were unaware of it I would have appreciated somebody doing the same on here and I have certainly taken advantage of this forum in the past to help my decision making process regarding investments I make or don't. I write as someone who has looked into in detail and have almost doubled my (small) stake in FI. Although I seem to be less sceptical than most in this thread, unless you're hugely knowledgeable about football and trading I suggest you don't put lots of money into FI. The above post, although no doubt well-intentioned, seems to betray some naivety regarding the economics of schemes like this. FI will grow if because of either / both (a) irrational exuberance [capital growth], or (b) if the "dividend" yield (or rate of return), risk adjusted, is too high. Relying on the former is obviously a terrible strategy. And the latter will only hold for so long (and it may not any more) - the faster the capital growth, the lower the future "dividend" yield; in other words, the more money you've made from capital growth in the past, the less you'll make from dividends in future. A confidence crash is a much bigger concern for this kind of thing as there's no real underlying asset generating the income. In that sense parallels with cryptocurrencies are fair, but comparisons with p2p / hedge funds are not. I am looking to get out soon as the "dividend" yield continues to fall. I reckon it was about 10% (on average) when I started - although FI don't make it easy to calculate this - and is now probably about 5%.
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