1970s : 1980s : 1990s : The Future?

1980s - The Foundations of Spread Betting Are Set

Thanks to the boom in Gold prices, financial spread betting was now firmly on the map. Then came the beginning of the great stock market bull move in 1982/83, followed by Big Bang (deregulation of the London Stock Exchange) in 1986 alongside the Tories privatisation policies, so continuing to open up and create easier access to the Stock Market for the general public. And along with the growth of the financial markets, financial spread betting was getting bigger. But there remained a problem - the clients were still made up predominantly from the financial markets.

Business was still good, and new financial spread bet companies were entering the arena so creating competition, but there was little or no innovation in the products that the companies offered. For example, throughout the majority of the 1980s and early 1990s financial spread betting companies didn't offer markets on company shares, only stock indexes, currencies, bonds and commodities etc. This was a problem, because if the Spread Betting brokers wanted to attract clients from outside the financial markets, they'd have to offer them products that were more common to their level of knowledge and experience.

The Great 1980's Bull - FTSE 100 Index 1984-1990