Football Index founder blacklisted by Jersey Gambling Commission

The Jersey Gambling Commission has prohibited Adam Cole from holding any position at a Jersey-licensed gaming business.

Jersey.- The founder of the collapsed football player trading platform Football Index has been blacklisted by the Jersey Gaming Commission. Adam Cole will not be allowed to hold any position at any business licensed by the regulator following an investigation into his “fitness and propriety”.

The commission has backdated its decision to April 6. Cole can still apply to the regulator to request it withdraw or amend its decision. The regulator suspended Football Index’s licence in March 2021 and initiated an investigation following its collapse. It permanently revoked the operator’s licence in October after taking the decision that it was no longer fit and proper to hold it.

Adam Cole left his role as CEO of Football Index in December 2020 just months before it collapsed and its owner BetIndex went into administration. The resulting scandal also led to investigations in the UK, where the Gambling Commission came in for criticism for not having intervened. It was even questioned whether the Gambling Commission should have licensed Football Index in the first place.

The UK government found that the Gambling Commission had not noticed for three years that Football Index was offering a product that was not licensed. Andrew Rhodes, the Gambling Commission’s new chief executive, has defended the regulator’s role and responded publicly to questions about the case.

Writing in a blog post, he denied claims that the Gambling Commission had licensed a product it didn’t understand, but said BetIndex had added functionalities that were not part of its licence terms, including allowing users to sell bets.

He also denied that Football Index was a Ponzi scheme, as indicated in the DCMS review, and he said its operating model at the time it gained its Gambling Commission licence was not significantly different from that of other operators, other than the fact it relied on a single product rather than a portfolio.

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