A white-knuckle ride with a new wave of betting swashbucklers

It was in another era, another world, perhaps even a parallel universe, that the germ of the idea of Sporting Index took root. There were telephones, but few of them mobile and certainly none that could connect to a non-existent internet; punting was onshore and in-shop and the shops were smoky and lacking in creature comforts.

It's tempting to imagine that the brave new world of spread betting broke every mould in the book and ushered in a new behavioural model for the industry in a chrome-plated, glass-fronted palace; surely it was sleek and slick and custom-built for the sophisticated, well-heeled punter who was about to turn the game on its rather scabby head.

The truth, as it often is, was rather different.