IS FOOTBALL INDEX A THREAT TO STANDARD BETTING?

If you have eyes, then you will have seen hundreds of sports betting adverts over the years. They’re everywhere. Now, if you’re a more avid follower of football then it’s highly plausible that Football Index isn’t a new concept to you. BetIndex Ltd who run the fast-growing platform label it the ‘future of betting' but is that really the case? Here we take a look how it varies to the traditional betting systems and answer that very question.

How is Football Index different to general betting?

In standard sports betting you’re generally placing a wager on the outcome of an event – or series of events i.e. a multiple or accumulator – with the most common bet type being the match bet. For example, the Kentucky Derby horse race, the SuperBowl or the Champions League. In the football scenario, you place your stake on a competitor to win, lose or draw. After 90 minutes, your bet is settled.

Football Index is dramatically different to this method. The platform operates in a similar manner to that of a stock market; that means there are no odds with only the option to buy ‘shares' in football players.

Their values alter based on how much cash ‘traders' invest in them giving you the option to sell for profit – and you can get dividend wins along the way too in the shape of ‘media' or ‘performance’ payments.

What are the pros and cons?

Let’s start on the downsides. Now, don’t get us wrong, there are a lot of players on Football Index – thousands in fact – but if you’ve got the next big thing coming through your academy and happen to be an Accrington Stanley fan then you won’t be able to invest in that player. It’s not a huge deal in the trading sense if you compare it to finding the next Google on the stock market. Where it does become a bigger issue is when you compare it to a match bet. You see unfancied teams winning all the time and that can easily treble your stake – it’s much harder to find a player who will do that for you on Football Index.

Now some positives. We mentioned the underdog winning a match; now imagine making that bet and losing. Again, not an irregular occurrence. Your stake is gone, never to be seen again. On Football Index, if you make a trade that doesn’t immediately make you money then you can hold the shares for three years so the prospect of losing everything (consider it your stake) is slim – although still possible so don’t bet what you can’t afford. Ever.

The other positives are that your ‘bet' doesn’t finish at 5pm on Saturday meaning even a modest investment can hold your interest for a long time with daily dividend payments giving you the option to make money on a regular basis.

Of course, there is also an opportunity to make a handsome return on investment with several decent sources for Football Index tips available, which can help get you up and running.

Verdict

Index began in 2015 and now has a pretty substantial – and growing – following, which suggests it isn’t going away anytime soon. That doesn’t mean it’s a replacement for the traditional sports bet though – and in no way, shape or form do we think it will knock the big boys off their perch. If anything, we’d expect to see punters treat the two quite separately and if anyone loses out it will be the actual trading platforms as people migrate to investing funds into a platform that they feel more comfortable with, which is football rather than businesses.