Spread Betting – In the Beginning

In 1974, Stuart Wheeler started what is now established as spread betting.

Stuart, then a young unemployed stock broker began gambling on the price of gold.

On a weekly basis, a select group of people met in the offices of Merchant Bankers, N. M. Rothschild to 'fix' the prices at which gold bullion would be acquired or sold by the firms dealing in the precious metal.

These prices formed the basis on which gold would be traded until the next 'fix'.

Wheeler basically made a bet on the next 'buy' and a 'sell' price that would be announced.

Those believing the new price would be more than the price he set placed a “buy” bet and those who thought his price was too high placed a 'sell' bet.
This concept generated so much interest that Wheeler expanded and widened the products on which clients could bet to include Commodities and foreign exchange.

This resulted in the birth of IG Index (International Gold), the forerunner of all the spread betting bookmakers today.

Spread betting continued to grow throughout the economic boom years of the 80's, but was hindered by poor development of technology.

Growth was boosted by technological developments during the 90's however this was followed quickly by rapid development of the internet offering tremendous opportunity for financial spread betting traders to launch online trading platforms and extend the markets covered.