If you open an account in a regular futures company, it is not gambling for an individual to set up a stock index futures club. Because stock index futures are legal, just like stocks, they are formal and legal. However, if an individual sets up a virtual disk to deceive others to trade stock index futures, it is a crime and it is definitely illegal. Whether it is legal or not depends on whether his stock index futures account is opened in a regular futures company and whether it can be found in CICC and margin monitoring center.