Spread betting pioneer and City Index co-founder Jonathan Sparke dies aged 76

Jonathan Sparke (pictured in 2001), the co-founder of City Index, has died. Credit: Mark Cranham

Jonathan Sparke, the inventor of sports spread betting and co-founder of City Index, has died aged 76.

Sparke, who started City Index with a handful of staff and built it into one of the leading names in the sector, was described as "one of the proper characters of the world" by his friend Peter Burrell, business manager to Frankie Dettori.

 "What a lovely man," Burrell said. "I met Jonathan when I had just finished working for Julie Cecil and I had just taken on Frankie. 

"We had an instant friendship. He taught me what the 'PFL' was – a proper f****** lunch. We used to go to the Pont de la Tour [restaurant] in those days. We travelled the world together, never had a bad glass of wine and lived properly. 

"This is a great loss, he was one of the proper characters of the world. You don't get many of those anymore."

Sparke joined Coral Index in 1979, the original spread betting business founded by stockbrokers in the 1960s and backed by legendary bookmaker Joe Coral.

However, the business hit a bad run – it was subsequently sold to Ladbrokes in 1981 – and Sparke left Coral Index with colleague Christopher Hales to found City Index in 1983.

Hales and Sparke eventually disagreed about the direction of City Index, and in 1994 billionaire businessman Michael Spencer took an initial £6 million stake in the company before later securing full control.

Sparke was forced to sell his interest in City Index in 1997 following a bout of severe ill health that would result in him receiving a heart transplant. 

As he told Alastair Down in a Racing Post interview in 2001: "I wanted to know when the situation was particularly dire and one day they said I should make my final financial arrangements. With seven intravenous drips in place, I sold my interest in City Index within 24 hours."

Sparke was a huge horseracing fan and his son Christopher said it remained his sporting passion.

"From 1997 onwards the main sport he always watched and followed and gave advice to many people was horseracing," he said.

"The two things he loved in life were wine and horseracing. He was an encyclopaedia – you asked him any question and he would know the stats for the trainer, the horse, the breeding, its track record, everything. He loved horseracing with a passion right the way through to the very end."

Sparke did return to spread betting after City Index, acting as a consultant for Sporting Index. He was also set to head a spread betting operation to be launched by bookmaker Victor Chandler in 1999, but that association was short-lived and in 2000 he became an executive director at pools firm Zetters, which was setting up an online betting operation.

However, he had to step down later that year due to his ongoing health problems and underwent a kidney transplant in 2005 as a result of the medication he was taking following his heart transplant.

He spent his later years living in the Var region of Provence in France.

Sparke leaves his wife Ann, four children and six grandchildren. A memorial service is being planned to take place in Britain this autumn.