History of Spread-betting
Originally all trading was conducted over the telephone: an investor would call the trading desk, ask for a quote, place a bet and then a couple of days later receive confirmation of the trade via post. To monitor the trade a client would have to call the desk throughout the day and decide whether to run the trade or close the bet before its expiry. These days, as confidence in technology grows, so more and more investors are moving to the internet to place and monitor trades.
In October 2000, Investors Chronicle’s market research showed that since March of that year the number of readers with access to the internet increased dramatically from 28 per cent to 88 per cent. During this time the percentage of those users who had actually bought a share over the internet rose from 20 per cent to nearly 50 per cent. Now nearly two years on it can be assumed that almost all private investors have access to the internet and that the vast majority are prepared to trade on-line.