The man who led the exodus from the betting wilderness

It was 1999 and the betting landscape was looking decidedly bleak. The fertile spring of 1961 – which saw the swearing in of JFK and the legalisation of betting shops – had given way not to a brave new world of punting but to a seemingly immovable stasis in which the outlook changed not a jot from season to season, from year to year.

The cabal of established high street bookmakers had little incentive to throw open the doors of a profitable closed shop and punters remained oblivious to the opportunities that might be afforded by change. The outside world was moving on apace, new technology was gathering momentum, but betting was still rooted in the Dark Ages.

On the fringes of this world, a keen racing punter, budding genius, mild obsessive and computer geek, emerging from a youth of directionless underachievement, was wondering why the bookmaking industry was dragging its heels in an era that had almost infinite capacity for innovation.